ROCKING THE CRADLE

One foot out to rock the baby cradle at the bow, 

while sewing with two hands, 

a woman's work is never done.

in this vintage illustration provided by Graphics Fairy.

What memories do you have of your own mother. grandmother, and aunts?

MARRIAGE AND MOTHERHOOD - THE PRIMARY WOMAN'S CONCERNS

 Excertps; page 104-105

Marriage , of course, was serious business for women, who surrendered their names, legal identity, property, and bodies to their husbands with the pronouncement of their wedding vows. For all the levity of the young girls' letters, the calculations in choosing a husband were a vital part of their conversations  Perhaps remembering her own parent's loving marriage as she learned about matchmaking in aristocratic circles, Martha was incredulous to hear the manner in which some European men searched for wives; "I recollect you would not believe that now and then people advertise for a wife," Bettie Hawkins wrote from London, enclosing just such an ad from The Morning Post and hoping, "you will believe your own eyes"

***

From pages 108-109 My notes:

Unlike her older sister Martha, Maria Jefferson did not like to write letters. This might have been because she aimed to please - was a perfectionist - or because she expected her father or someone else would also read her letters - and thus could not speak her mind.  

When the two Jefferson daughters were withdrawn from Panthemont, the exclusive and expensive Catholic girl's school in Paris that they attended while their father attended to his representation of the new United States in France, Maria was probably the one who was glad, while Martha would miss it terribly and no doubt be influenced by her experience there for the rest of her life.

To ease the transition, the girls were able to have the student friends they had made come to visit them at their home base in Paris....

In April of 1789 Jefferson brought them back into the family circle at the Hotel de Langeac. This "hotel" was a townhome, a three story building with a nice garden and courtyard and was quite comfortable. They had sometimes visited for weekends away from their convent school, and the building was semi public and any Americans who needed the help of the American government could stop by. Perhaps a result of visitors both girls caught typhus which is caught from fleas or body lice.  (I've seen those death records in Catholic church records from Europe in which it is noted that various people died of typhus. The bacteria gets into the blood stream, a high temperature results, lasting a couple weeks and can cause some permanent damage.) Maria's bout with typhus was severe.

Page 175  (After Maria made it though a birth)

Childbed fever, also called then puerperal fever, could kill as infection invaded the uterus after delivery. Long before doctors understood the impotence of cleanliness in avoiding infection, and the invention of antibiotics, expectant mothers prepared as much for their death as for the new life they would bring into the world. Jack (her husband) was relieved that Maria showed no such symptoms.

Their job was short lived. Within two weeks, their little girl was dead and Maria was suffering greatly from abscesses on her skin. It is possible that she had been instructed, as many eighteenth century mothers were, to withhold milk for the infants' first few days. Today's mothers know that colostrum, the first secretions of the breast after childbirth, contain a rich combination of vitamins and anti-allergens that protect newborns. In the eighteenth century, however, colostrum was thought to be toxic, so mothers waited for what they considered a purer milk flow to be established before nursing. But the baby's death suggests that she had difficulty nursing, rendering Maria vulnerable to mastitis and infections. The milk ducts in her right breast became clogged, and, inflamed with infections and pus, sores broke through to her skin in several places....

Notes:  Sometimes I wonder how humanity survived when so many people seem to have been so ignorant about women's health. 

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

TERESA WEILER'S TESTIMONIAL ON BEING A CHILD OF INCEST, MEETING HER BIRTH PARENTS, and WHY SHE CHOSE NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN

DAILY MAIL : I COULDN'T HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE  from December 2022, Teresa Weiler wrote this testimonial published by Daily Mail. It is her story of discovering she was born due to brother-sister incest and how this knowledge strongly influenced her choices to not also have children.

As I read this I felt for her, very much so, but I also wish she had been better informed in youth.  I'm not sure that if she had children they would be "monsters."  And I think she might have benefited from counseling. 

Last year I met a woman who is good friends with a woman who has a few children that are the result of her father having sex with her as a teenager.  I was told these children were prospering and that their mother was fine. It was told to me by someone who is anti-abortion, perhaps as an example of how well things can turn out.  But when this same woman told me that children of incest never suffer I had to question that.  I said I knew of a family in which there had been first cousin marriages through the generations and they had all sorts of mental illness, learning disabilities, and developmental delays...  They said it was to keep the land in their family in Europe. Though for two generations the immigrants children had married outside that close family, these medical issues were not resolved.  (And I was there when the immigrant grandparents were trying to "match-make" their grand-daughter with a cousin as if they had lived in America for years!)

I also thought of the ancient royal Egyptians who did have genetic negatives from close interbreeding.

Today, however, should you be concerned about passing down genetic issues to your offspring, there is genetic testing and counseling. 

And, I won't say "there's always adoption," as I realize from friends that it has gotten expensive and difficult.  However, if you do love children, there are other ways that a person can get involved with children in education, in fostering, and in volunteer work.

AMERICAN WOMEN HAVING FIRST BABIES LATER IN LIFE

NEW YORK TIMES : AGE AT FIRST MOTHERHOOD RISES

Take a look at the charts - college women seem to be completing their educations first.  And the average age of first motherhood in the United States is 26 plus.