Motherhood in Early Nineteenth Century

Motherhood in Early Nineteenth Century
In the early nineteenth century, physicians in the US were not the significant factors in heath care that they are today, they were virtually absent from child care.

Most medical care was the in fact given in the home, it was the mother – not a doctor – who was the principal care giver.

As one of the historian notes: “The home was important in marinating health was well as in treating disease.

In generations unaware of the germ theory and of the nature and accusation of disease generally, the maintenance of health was seen in aggregate – nonspecific – terms.

Every aspect of life demanded scrutiny and control. Diet, exercise, air quality and sleep all could, over time, bring about sickness or preserve health.”

In seeing of her family’s good health, a mother used what she had at hand. Sometimes it was a home medical book written by a physician.

There were many available in this country, often reprints of books published in England, though few of these manuals focused on child care.

Perhaps she had some herbal remedies recommended by her mother or a neighbor. If she lived in an urban area, she could buy drugs suggested an prepared by a pharmacist.

Most conditions were handled at home, as doctors were called only for the very ill.

Among the significant factors affecting women’s maternal roles were demographic shifts in the US population that fostered a different view of motherhood and changed mothering practices.

Just look, for instance, at family size. In 1800, the average number of children born to a white woman surviving to menopause was 7.04. By the turn of the twentieth century this number had dropped to 3.56. By the end of the twentieth century the averages number of children per family was 1.86.

This declined resulted from several interrelated and interacting forces. The United States moved from a primarily agricultural, rural country, at one based on an urban, industrial and service based economy and consequently, children became more expensive.

In the earlier period, children were to the family. In the later period, it was expensive to maintain children in an urban environment, where mandatory education and cultural values them out of the workforce; in economic terms, they cost the family.

The fertility decline also followed from increased availability of effective birth control and from growing numbers of women attaining education and entering the job market.

In the same years, more women remained single and other women married later in life, which meant that individual women spent less time in childrearing.

In addition, with smaller family, girls, and women had less experience with younger siblings before they started their own families.

With different family structures and other changes in the United States over time, many women found themselves raising families in situations quite unlike their mothers’ eras, making the expertise of grandmothers less applicable.
Motherhood in Early Nineteenth Century