How Soon Can I Take Care of My Baby After its Arrival?” and evolving the long move to create a better world for everyone...
While cleaning out some bookshelves recently, I came across a 1950 (first copyright was 1934) book titled, “Facts of Life”. You know I had to check it out. Surprisingly, a lot of it is still current in this day and age – even though so many procedures, etc. have been updated. I did have to chuckle – no, laugh out loud – when I first randomly opened it and read the section, “How Soon Can I Take Care of My Baby After its Arrival?” First, I have to say, “its” arrival? Now I’ll leave that alone. In 1950, if your birth was normal and there were no complications, a mother could take care of her baby herself after fourteen days (what?!), “if for economic reasons it is necessary…” “…but if she can have help it is far better to wait about six weeks (laughing harder) before taking full charge of her baby.” (I can hear my mother and sisters laughing with me. And my daughters/in-laws, too.) We’re lucky these days if we can stay in the hospital for one night, and how many people have people who don’t work and can come and stay with the new moms for weeks on end?
While we’re on the subject of having babies, the cost of having a baby in 1950, depending on the circumstances of the pregnancy, financial status of the family, etc., was between (for “a good doctor”) $50 to $300. And, amazingly, the book actually says, “The baby’s real needs are few.” About $35 – or less – will cover the first necessities. (Now who’s laughing? Dads? Moms?) Of course, you can spend much more, but none of the fancier stuff is “necessary to the health or wellbeing of the child”. And get this, the hospital bills varied “from $50 (!!!!????) in maternity homes to $200 or more for a fine room in a big modern hospital.” (Still laughing, although with a little envy.)
At least, as far as I read, it doesn’t appear we’ve found a new way to actually give birth…
I was a bit surprised and a little delighted to read the section of “What Mental Attitudes Are Different in the Male? And Why?” Surprised (although the Women's Rights Movement officially began in 1848 at a tea - proper beginning, indeed) because the author, a woman, was definitely pre "modern" women’s lib. She talked about man’s superior strength, blah, blah, blah, so I was prepared for the “perfect housewife” mentality, but she says, “As a result women were treated as chattels, without property or other rights. Because of this inherited feeling man enacted laws to keep her in this false position.” My women’s libber friends would love her: “Women’s proven mental ability has been a bitter blow to man’s supposed superiority. It is a fact very difficult for him to accept.” Wow. 1950. But she didn’t sound as much angry at men as at the long-time roles of male superiority over women, which changed drastically when we were hit with WWII. Women had to become part of the work force and they were able to prove that mental ability and intelligence are equal in both sexes. But I love her comment and following wisdom when she said, “This confirmed what woman already knew, but gave background to her struggle for equality. However, it is impossible quickly to wipe out customs that have been centuries in the making.”
I expect part of the “you can take care of your baby yourself after six weeks” stuff came out of the feeling of woman being the weaker sex, and it has evolved accordingly, but I love that we have come so far in so many ways. Men happily staying home with the babies, women happily being able to be the primary bread winner, African Americans free to live like they are free – I know a lot of these are not accepted by many people yet, but there is hope and there is truth in her words “it is impossible quickly to wipe out customs that have been centuries in the making.” Year by year, day by day, we need to stand up for the downtrodden, the poor, the races, the faces, the brilliance, the talents of people who have not been able to live a full life because of someone’s idea that they are different or less than them. People are awesome, and they should be allowed to use the gifts they’ve been given regardless of their race, sex, background or anything else someone tries to use against them. Their behavior will eventually tell what kind of person they are inside, and that is what counts. Would you hire a white man over a black man? Or a qualified man over an unqualified man? Or a black unqualified man who’s willing to climb over the fence and learn, so he can put another rung on the ladder of success for the people coming after him? (Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Ruby Bridges Hall, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Sidney Poitier, Nichelle Nichols…an extraordinary list of people who for many years have been paving the way to real freedom for African Americans. Phenomenal people.) Be part of the solution and forge ahead in whatever way you can. Keep moving until we entirely “wipe out customs that have been centuries in the making”.
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