Childless in the Golden Era

[hbenthow]

Many reputable family doctors would perform abortions on the QT and report them as "miscarriages" or "appendicitis," especially for school-age young women who would disappear without explanation from school for a couple of months, and return just as mysteriously.

True. However, I've heard speculation that certain groups of the era exaggerated the incidence of abortion in order to further their causes. Birth control activists often used the claim that there was an epidemic of abortions to convince those who had religious or moral objections to birth control to ease up (reasoning that these people would consider birth control the lesser of two evils and tolerate it if they believed that it would lower the abortion rate), and eugenicists often used claims that there was a high abortion rate among the "mentally unfit" as further reason why they should be sterilized. So it may be that the abortion rate was actually lower than many people were led to believe at the time.

Interestingly, abortion wasn't the only surgery that was written off as "appendicitis". In the deep south, there once existed the phenomenon of so-called "Mississippi appendectomies". Impoverished women (especially if they were non-white) were falsely told by doctors that they needed their appendix out, and while they were under anesthesia, the surgeons sterilized them. Because of this, the number of eugenic sterilizations in Mississippi and some other southern states was actually higher than is officially recorded.

It's also possible that some wealthier women paid for sterilization procedures that violated the "rule of 120" (an arbitrary medical rule that a healthy woman could not be voluntarily sterilized unless her age multiplied by her number of children equaled 120 or higher) and had them written off in the medical records as appendectomies or some other surgery.

And hysterectomies, surgeries for ovarian cysts, and other surgeries of a private nature were sometimes reported to the public as appendectomies in order to avoid embarrassment to the patient (especially if the patient was famous). There is at least one documented instance of this occurring; a girl named Ilene Marjorie Barton died in 1942 from complications after surgery for a burst ovarian cyst and a bowel obstruction, but the newspapers stated that the surgery had been for appendicitis.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=27102471

In short, "appendicitis" was often the cover story for almost anything that would be embarrassing to the patient or the patient's family, even if it was something that wouldn't be scandalous, per se.

 

[Edward]

Some of that still goes on. My 90-year-old mother, who has lived her entire life in South Des Moines, is ruled by "what the neighbors think."

I've always said Northern Ireland is at least a generation behind especially in the sort of rural areaswhere I grew up. Specifically so among the middle classes, where everything is about getting ahead, where you're sent for piano lessons from the age of five so they can be put on your application to university, and where What People Will Think of You is everything. In my early forties, I have never married, and have never had any desire to have children. The old-fashioned notion that dates back to my grandparents' (all born in the teens) era still holds: there certainly are those who simply assume I'm gay as a result. (I've never been insulted by that, personally, though they tend to be of a generation where that would be A Bad Thing). This is changing across Europe, more slowly back in the old Country. My paternal grandmother, who died ten years ago last August, used to say "It takes children to make a marriage" - though she had at least one of her five siblings who married but opted not to have children. A great uncle on the other side never married and never had kids. On the whole, though, I have a feeling that across my generation of our family, we may be the first to produce a smaller next generation.

I get the impression that it's a combination of economics (which would be in line with the information on birth rates dropping during the Depression, above), and perhaps also the average marrying age rising. It would be interesting also to compare birthrates across a geographical spread from the era. For instance, did people in cities have fewer kids, or more often choose not to have kids? In the present-day rural areas like where I grew up, it's still more common than not for people to choose children, whereas of my social circles here in London, it seems to be very common to choose a 'childfree' lifestyle. Of course this could be distorted by the fact that like people tend to socialise with like; friends who have had children do seem to largely drop out of a lot of social activity in favour of others centred on their children. (Not all, but most.)

Media depictions, I'm sure do contribute to the perception of what is the standard, usual, "normal" or "natural" - at least as much as the access to reliable methods of contraception and information about same. The latter naturally makes it much easier to avoid having children, but the former must have a distinct influnece - both in the eaqrly 20th century, and now.

Didn't Socrates say, more or less, that not everyone's opinion is worthy of respect?

A girl at university once made a comment designed to make me look small, and presumably, her funny and clever. I smiled and told her "That comment would really have hurt had it come from someone whom I respected." She was mightily insulted once she figured out what I'd said (she was neither as funny or, indeed, as clever as she thought she was), but she didn't try that on again.

 

[hbenthow]

It would be interesting also to compare birthrates across a geographical spread from the era. For instance, did people in cities have fewer kids, or more often choose not to have kids?

I don't currently know of any statistics for the 1920s-1940s that take geography into account in any detailed way, nor do I know of any that feature detailed comparisons of childlessness rates in cities and rural areas. However, I have read that in parts of the 19th century, childlessness rates ranged from 6-8% (for southern and western states) to 30% (in some northeastern states). There were likely similar geographical differences in birth rates and childlessness rates in the early 20th century as well.

 

[Edward]

Was the North East much more industrialised than the South in that period?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Very much so. While not the center of heavy manufacturing that the Midwest was, the Northeast was dominated by textile manufacturing, both the production of raw cloth and the production of finished clothing, shoe manufacturing, canning and processed-food production, and small household goods. On the coastlines, shipbuilding and shipping were dominant, and up here in Maine, forestry and papermaking were king.

The South had a lot of textile manufacturing as well, but well into the forties it was overwhelmingly an agricultural economy, depending on cheap, exploitable labor such as sharecropping for its survival.

 

[GHT]

My maternal grandparents married in 1910. Their daughter, my mother, was an only child, born 12 years after they married. My mother died young, she was just 33. After her death my grandparents moved away. At the time, it didn't raise any doubts or concerns, but as I grew up I realised that grandparents had hoped not to have children, and they probably moved so that they weren't asked to help my father, who was having a difficult time raising four kids all under the age of 10.
My grandparents never spoke about it, but I speculate they were happy with just each other's company, that's all they ever needed, or wanted. They never spoke about it so I have never known if they ever had any flak or not. As for myself and my siblings, the experience and pain of losing a mother so young and the subsequent difficult times had a marked effect on us. Two of us got married but have no children, the third born had three children and the last born, like our grandparents, had a daughter 12 years into their marriage. They never had another child.
The vasectomy, when it came along in the 60's, was only available to men over the age of 30, and then they had to prove that they already had 4 children. However, if you had the funds, you could go to a private clinic in London's Harley Street, where you could get snipped, no questions asked, as long as you signed a waiver stating that you accepted that the operation was final, meaning it wasn't reversible. There have been successful reversals, but the clinic didn't want any lawsuits, hence the waiver.
My 'honeymoon' was at that clinic. Others were led to believe that we had gone away, but in truth, it was a way of recovering from the swollen technicolor plums, without arousing suspicion. A newlywed, aged 22, didn't dare tell the world of that decision. Unlike others though, we have had some serious flak over the years, but the best way of dealing with it is to smile and ignore it.

 

[hbenthow]

However, if you had the funds, you could go to a private clinic in London's Harley Street, where you could get snipped, no questions asked, as long as you signed a waiver stating that you accepted that the operation was final, meaning it wasn't reversible.

Did your wife have to sign anything to document that she approved, and prevent the possibility of a Bravery v. Bravery* type incident?

* Bravery v. Bravery was a 1954 British court case in which a wife suing for divorce argued that her husband's vasectomy (which he had gotten in 1938) was a form of emotional cruelty, claiming that he had obtained the operation without her permission and in spite of her desire to have more children (they only had one).

 

[GHT]

Did your wife have to sign anything to document that she approved, and prevent the possibility of a Bravery v. Bravery* type incident?

Why would she be expected to? The contract was between me and the clinic. If you follow the argument of her signing a waiver, then, if the relationship broke down, would subsequent partners also be expected to sign a waiver too?
The gist of what you are saying stems from one partner not being totally committed to a life without children. In that case I feel very sorry for Mrs Bravery. What her husband did was deceitful, wicked and wrong. What we did was mutual and based on trust. Unlike the Braverys, our relationship never floundered, far from it, grim reaper permitting, we shall go gold in a couple of years time when we celebrate fifty years of marriage.

As a postscript I would add that to this day, it is unwise to declare publicly that you don't want children, read about Holly Brockwell, who dared to do just that.

 

[hbenthow]

What we did was mutual and based on trust. Unlike the Braverys, our relationship never floundered, far from it, grim reaper permitting, we shall go gold in a couple of years time when we celebrate fifty years of marriage.

I didn't mean to imply that a Bravery v. Bravery type incident was an actual danger in your case, or that you didn't have the permission of your wife. I'm sorry if it came across that way. What I meant to ask was whether or not the clinic was paranoid that such a thing might occur (and thus insistent on your wife signing a waiver).

 

[GHT]

The surgery, as I recall, went to great pains to make me aware that the procedure was permanent. I don't recall them asking me if I was in a relationship, or not.
There was nothing offensive about your post, nor was any taken. Welcome to the Lounge.

 

[hbenthow]

Welcome to the Lounge.

Thank you.