62. State Maternity Homes Wanted.
My husband is a non-smoker and total abstainer, so you will know no money was spent in waste. But I feel sure my first baby was still-born through hard work and lifting. The money brought in not being sufficient to keep us all, I went out to work, and looked after my husband and step-children as well.
I feel sure it is not so much lack of knowledge as lack of means that entails so much suffering. I endured agonies when carrying my second child, through bad varicose veins in legs and body, but of course still had to plod on and look after the rest. I had knowledge of what to eat to produce milk, etc., but could only confine myself to cocoa and oatmeal, which I often felt sick at the sight of, but could afford nothing else, as I made these things for the rest of the family also. I at the second confinement produced a fine boy, 9½ pounds in weight. He is now eight, and is still a very fine boy. The medical officer, when examining him, passed a very pointed remark, saying: “He is, of course, an only child,” and I often feel thankful he is. We live in quite a poor house, 7s. 6d. weekly rent, but to do justice to my grown-up step-children, so that they may live up to standard required of by their work, I cannot afford to have any more children, also I cannot face the awful agonies a woman has to go through in looking after a family (there are five of us in the home now) whilst child-bearing. When I had my boy I had to do the family washing in the third week after confinement. As to taking care, no working woman can do that unless absolutely obliged to. The best thing that could happen would be a system of State Maternity Homes, where working women could go for a reasonable fee and be confined, and stay for convalescence (not a workhouse system). There is no peace for the wife at home. She is still the head and chancellor of the exchequer. If she were confined on Friday, she would still have to plan and lay out the Saturday money, and if it did not stretch far enough, she would be the one to go short or do the worrying. I am sure if we, as a Guild, could bring this about, a lot of women’s worry would be over. At the same time it would be a recognition of the importance of our women as race-bearers, and lift her to a higher plane than at present.
My husband’s highest wages during the time you ask were 36s., lowest 24s., but in his trade wet weather and frosty weather means no work, and in addition no pay during slack times.
There is one thing—as to mechanical prevention of family. I know it is a delicate subject, but it is an urgent one, as it is due to low-paid wages and the unearthly struggle to live respectably. All the beautiful in motherhood is very nice if one has plenty to bring up a family on, but what real mother is going to bring a life into the world to be pushed into the drudgery of the world at the earliest possible moment because of the strain on the family exchequer.
I was much struck with the remarks of “Kitchener’s” boys who have been billeted on me, about my boy. He is only nine, and they said he was as big as the general run of lads in the North when they are thirteen—“But then, ma, you’ve only one to keep which is different to seven or eight.”
There is nothing that is done can ever be too much if we are to have going a race in the future worthy of England, but it will not be until the nation wakes up to the needs of the mothers of that future race.
Wages 24s. to 36s.; one child, one still-birth, one miscarriage.
63. “A Miserable Experience.”
I am really not a delicate woman, but having a large family, and so fast, pulled me down very much. I used to suffer very much with bad legs; and my husband was laid out of work most winters, so I had a great deal of poverty to deal with.
Nearly all my children were delicate, and being badly off, very often I could not get or do what I would like to for them. I lost four out of the ten, and had a very great difficulty in rearing some of the others. They were nearly all two years before they ran; my eldest girl was three years before she ran; I never thought she could live, but, thank God, she has lived, and is nearly twenty-two. If something could be done for poor women with large families, I think it would be a good thing; for a woman’s life is not much when she is in poverty and got sickly children, and never knows what an hour’s liberty is. It is keep on work with no rest days, and not much nights very often. Of course, during pregnancy one never feels well, what with one thing and the other. That was my experience; and after confinement I used to be so weak, and by the time I began to regain my strength a little I was in trouble again. So you can’t wonder poor delicate women break down and very often die. It would be good if something could be done for them, so as to give them a change and a little rest. And when you have got an unkind husband it is a terrible life. I very often think that is why my poor children have to suffer so much now they are grown up, as they are not any of them strong, and very often ailing with one thing or the other. You may depend on it there is a good many women got unkind husbands that make it a great deal worse for women.
My husband used to lose his work through drink. I couldn’t tell you exactly what my wages were, but I feel almost sure, to take the years through, they never amounted to £1 a week. I was in hopes, as soon as my boys started work, I should have got on better, but the more I got off my boys the less I got off my husband, for mine has been a miserable experience.
For a good many years I kept account of what he gave me, and to take the year through it used to amount to about 15s. a week.
Wages unknown, wife’s allowance 15s. to £1; ten children, two miscarriages.