41. Over-Child-Bearing.
My feelings during pregnancy were just like those of Mary in Hall Caine (“The Woman Thou Gavest Me”). My mind was full of love and my time of preparation for the coming life within me. I worked very hard during the time of six children, knitting stockings and making clothes for those I already had, so my little one could be well nursed. Three are suffering from consumption, and one from curvature. When I had had six I never murmured, never once said I had enough, and did not want more, but after the birth of my last one I changed, because I could not nurse it and never carried it about. I do not blame my husband for this birth. He had waited patiently for ten months because I was ill, and thinking the time was safe, I submitted as a duty, knowing there is much unfaithfulness on the part of the husband where families are limited.
What is necessary for mothers is State aid for every child she gives birth to. If this is necessary for the aged, it is more so for the mother with the children.
It is quite time this question of maternity was taken up, and we must let the men know we are human beings with ideals, and aspire to something higher than to be mere objects on which they can satisfy themselves. Near my home are two sisters with ten months and eight days between their ages. Two doors from my own are four sisters, all living, and they all came in two years and fifteen days—the second born eleven months after the first, and thirteen months after twins came, and since then three more have been added to their number. None of them are old enough to work, and you will understand the position of the parents, who are good, deserving, well-meaning people, when the father, being out of work through the war (painter), has had to go labouring.
Wages 30s.; seven children, two miscarriages.