The fact that a woman was delivered from a burden right on the street, it was already some kind of extreme case. We worked until the very contractions — yes. But they hurried home to give birth. And preferably not alone, but with an assistant midwife. A woman could give birth 10-11 times, but it is unknown how many babies survived after such childbirth.
Now about «work on.» Yes, within 3-4 days after giving birth, women returned to hard housework, a week later they went to the field. But can you imagine what kind of health they actually had after that? According to researchers, almost all the girls in the villages have had uterine prolapse since the age of 16, and at 30 they were already emaciated old women.
«Children from a young age could already do everything around the house, and look after the younger ones»
This story is about independence. But! Independent children did not become early from a good life. It was necessary to go to work, which means to take the child to a nursery, and already in a few months. And the sooner you teach your baby to go to the potty, the less problems there will be with him. And nobody needed the problems, there was no one to solve them.
By the time the child went to school, he already had to be able, at least, to handle the keys, to warm up his own lunch, if necessary, to babysit his brothers and sisters.
«Children used to be healthier»
«Blood with milk and no this allergy of yours. And now everyone is frail, sickly. It’s all your ecology and chemistry.» Familiar? Certainly. But the children were always sick — they were just not often taken to the doctor, it was an expensive pleasure.
The first babies of a young family, as a rule, died altogether. because the parents were still «underdeveloped».
«When the mother does not have enough milk or when the child is left alone, they give him a pacifier. A mother, sister or grandmother will eat either potatoes, or black bread, or a bagel, spit it out into a thin rag, tie it with a thread — and the nipple is ready. Sometimes the same cloth is used for a long time without rinsing, and acquires a nasty sour smell.»
«A big family was a joy»
Of course, not like today, when I gave birth to one child — and already a feat. After all, the more kids the better, right? Here’s our grandmother… and how was it really with her, by the way?
«They are still waiting for the first one more or less happily,» the researcher said. — The father, of course, is waiting for his son. He treats his daughter completely indifferently. The same attitude, however, shows to the second and third son. Mothers usually begin to be burdened by the third child. If a woman begins to give birth often, then in the family, of course, they disapprove of this, not hesitating sometimes to make rude remarks about it: «Look, you are fertile, you have been covered with children like a hare.» These remarks often come from the mother-in-law.»
