The result has been that many a woman enters upon her motherhood gaily and eagerly, totally unprepared for what is to follow, totally unaware that, by the first act of motherhood, she gives up something essential to herself and something which is irreplacable in all the after years. So great a gift should be made not only voluntarily, but consciously, and with full knowledge of what it entails.
Cruel indeed is the callous hardness of the older mind that can see without desiring to help the proud and sensitive young spirit embarking upon a course which cannot but entail subtle difficulties at the best and extreme physical anguish at the worst, yet help of the kind the modern sensitive girl needs is almost unobtainable. Rare indeed is the mother of the last generation who has the power and the knowledge to meet the unvoiced demands of this.
Acquainted as I am with all sorts and conditions of men and women, I am nevertheless frequently amazed and filled with burning indignation at the well-nigh inhuman cruelty, stupidity and hypocrisy of the older generation towards young potential parents. It is not an uncommon thing to hear a man who is unfaithful to his wife because she has lost her physical beauty, at the same time haranguing the public on the compulsory duties of parenthood on the part of all young married women, and coupling his denunciations with sneers at the young girl who fears to embark on motherhood, reviling her as selfish. Yet the cause of her shrinking may be that from all the weltering confusion of contradictory and scrappy information which may have been allowed to reach her, the one which has fixed itself in her mind most vividly, is that which promised her loss of her bodily charm and that of all she possesses which is most valuable to her as a bond which binds her husband’s affection to her. The woman who is perfectly sure of the continuance of her husband’s spiritual and romantic love does not fear the risks of motherhood. All who truly and deeply love, desire parenthood. But can a woman who was married by a shallow man only for her beauty dare to risk the thing which holds him to her?
There is indeed a diabolical malignity in the older man who is himself unfaithful because of the very things in his wife which he denounces the younger girl for fearing.
This must not be misunderstood by my readers as indicating that I think a woman should shrink in any way or that her husband should grudge the sacrifice of all the fragrance and beauty which they possess towards making the child of their love the citizen of the future. But with fervent intensity, I feel that to keep the young woman ignorant of facts, and, at the same time, on the one hand to upbraid and bully her and on the other to terrorize her with evil minded tales and tragic sights, is conduct which would be laughable in its absurdity did it not touch the spring of tears.
As the months of expectant motherhood succeed one another the girl will find her power to walk and run, to keep up with her husband in his pleasure, his out-door exertions, or even to do the usual standing involved in the course of her house work, increasingly curtailed. This is perhaps the inevitable consequence of the burden of actual weight which results from the later growth of the child within her as it increases and approaches the size of a living baby.
Sometimes the fortunate mother finds that she is still capable of the same amount of exertion to which she is generally accustomed, but, under modern conditions, this is but seldom. The stories of Kaffir women on the trek who bear their children and follow on with the rest, and savages whose activity is in no way curtailed, are neither applicable to modern conditions, nor are they fair standards to set, because such women do not live as the modern woman is forced to, nor is their bodily organization really comparable with that of our highly sensitive brain-evolved race.
Nevertheless, with the exception of heavy exertion, the girl who is carrying her child should be able to indulge in a much greater amount of healthful exercise, without undue fatigue, than she is generally able to enjoy. (See also Chapter [X]).
Most women have heard rumours of others who have been able to follow out almost all their usual occupations, and have felt little or no handicap from child bearing. Such an exceptional woman is my correspondent who wrote:—
I lived exactly as usual; I played golf up to the middle of the seventh month and bicycled up to my very last. On the afternoon of the day my second child was born (weighing 8¾ lb.) I was shopping with a woman acquaintance, who had no idea there was anything on the way.