|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 30
[41] Dr. ETHEL VAUGHAN-SAWYER, speaking before the Fabian Women's Group,
in 1910, said: "Fortunately, after the first two or three months, most
children will thrive equally well when artificially fed, so long as the
milk is good and reliable, and is properly prepared." All of our facts
go to disprove this statement.
The question of maternal care for children after they are weaned is more
difficult to settle, but notwithstanding certain statistics gathered in
Birmingham,[42] in February, 1910, which showed that the infant
mortality among working mothers was one hundred and ninety per thousand,
while, among those not industrially employed, it was two hundred and
seventy per thousand, it seems sure that infant mortality is extremely
high in foundling asylums and in factory homes. In Fall River, where out
of every one hundred women, forty-five are at work outside the home,
three hundred and five babies, out of every one thousand born, die
before they are a year old; while even in New York City, but one hundred
and eighty-nine out of a thousand die. The natural location of Fall
River should make it a very healthy city. One remembers, too, the
classic statement that deaths among little children fell off steadily in
Paris during the siege of 1870. Little children seem better off even in
time of war, with the mothers at home, than in time of peace with their
mothers in the factory.
[42] Pamphlet entitled _Report on Industrial Employment of Married Women
and Infant Mortality_, signed by Dr. JOHN ROBERTSON, the Medical Officer
of Health, Birmingham.
A few years ago, we turned to sanitary day nurseries, and to
pasteurized milk and other prepared baby foods, as the solution for
neglected or unhygienic feeding. To-day we know that even a dirty and
ill-conditioned mother secretes better milk for her baby than can be
prepared in any laboratory. We must wash the mother and feed her the
milk, and then let her give it to her baby, instinct with her own life.
It is quite possible that our recent talk of ignorant mother love and of
the necessary substitution of sanitary nurseries, canned care and
pre-digested affection must all go the same way. We shall probably get
our best results by cleaning up the home, enlightening the mother, and
then letting her love her child into the full possession of its human
qualities.
Economically, too, at least with factory workers, it is questionable if
their wages will support sanitary day-nurseries, with intelligent nurses
for small groups of children, and at the same time pay some one to cook
and scrub at home. If the mother must still cook and care for her house,
in addition to her factory work, the burden is too great; and if money
for nurses must come from the state, or from charity, then we all know
the danger of such subsidies to industry, in its effect on wages.
Surely the ideal toward which we must work is for the mother, during the
period when she is bearing and rearing children, to be supported by the
father of her children. Let her do the work meantime which will best
care for her children, and at the same time conserve and strengthen her
powers for the third period of her life.
This period, from fifty to seventy-five years, is now more shamefully
wasted than any other of our national resources. If one attends a State
federation of women's clubs one will find nearly every delegate of this
age. They are women of mature understanding and of ripe judgment, still
possessing abundant health and strength, and where relieved by economic
conditions from the necessity of manual work, they have to live such
irregular and uncertain relations to life as can be maintained by
mothers-in-law, grandmothers, club secretaries, and presidents of town
improvement societies. Remove all restrictions on woman's activity, and
these strong matrons would vitalize our schools, give us decent
municipal housekeeping, supervise the conditions under which girls and
women work in shops and factories, and do much to clean up our politics.
Debarred from direct power as they are, they are still making us decent
in spite of ourselves.
For the future, then, it seems that we must accept working women in
every path of life. We must remove all disabilities under which they
labor, and at the same time protect them by special legislation as
future wives and mothers. All girls must master some line of
self-supporting work; and, except in the cases of those who have very
special tastes and gifts, they should select work which can be
interrupted, without too great loss, by some years of motherhood. During
this time, the mother must be supported so that she can largely care for
her own child, though she must also maintain outside interests through
work, which will keep her in touch with the moving current of her time.
Industries must be humanized and made fit for women. The last third of a
woman's life must be freed from legal limitations and popular
prejudices, so that we may secure these best years of her life for
private and public service. And meantime, it is well to remember that
every step we take in making this a fit world for woman to work in,
makes it a fit world for her father, her brothers, her lover and her
husband to work beside her.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|