I had the fortunate experience of growing up with great-grandparents living, as well as some of their siblings. I got to hear first-hand experiences from 3 generations of women (mother, grandmothers, and two great-grandmothers plus various aunts sprinkled in). It was invaluable for me. Knowing their life stories and the truth of what they endured has helped me navigate life in so many ways.
It also has been incredible armor against the flood of misplaced nostalgia and outright manipulation of history that seems so prevelant. My great-grandmother was born in 1908 and died in 2002. She left her abusive husband in the 1930s and raised her kids as a single mom in a time when it was exponentially more difficult to do so. Glad she got out when she did with 4 instead of 14…
When I hear of the women in the victorian times who worked as sex workers to get by, got hacked into pieces by Jack the Ripper and no one batted an eye when they heard a woman screaming as that’s just what London was like at the time…
… I know there’s a lot of unwritten history that wildly deviates from the conservative mindset, and always has.
If you’re interested, I highly recommend “The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper” by Hallie Rubenhold!
Before modern medicine, often people would have a ton of kids because they would frequently die.
Before modern medicine, often people would have a ton of kids because they would frequently die.
Before modern medicine, birth control and abortions were much harder to come by, too.
Also, women didn’t really get much of a say in the matter.
God forbid you point that out though, there’s a bunch of people who think this was all consensual.
This is a really important factor here that it wasn’t exactly “Grandma’s” choosing (not to make the meme unfunny but…) Yeah, more often than not it was “Grandpa” with no choice in the matter.
It’s ok to not laugh at a meme like this.
Rather than attributing this to the lack of modern medicine, I would attribute this to the lack of television and the internet. 🤣
100%
What else if there to but fuck?
Being fair to women back then, most of them didn’t know how sex and babies worked, lacked any sort of formal education besides knowing how to read and write, and were raised that disagreeing with your husband or saying no to him in the bedroom was how to wind up an old spinster, the worst fate for any woman.
“Honey, if I knew what was causing it, I would never have had more than two.”
-My great grandma, mother of 12
They legitimately didn’t understand that sex resulted in pregnancy?
That seems unlikely to be true unless they were raised very religious and not in any proximity to farm animals or pets.
Religious, yes. But very much on a farm.
So she knew if the farm animals had sex they’d become pregnant?
She lived on the farm, but she didn’t work it; that’s what the male children were for. Her “place” was in the house.
She told me she would ask sometimes, but all anybody would ever tell her was some variation of, “Birds fly. Fish swim. Women have babies. That’s just what they do/That’s just the way it is.”
She finally found out from her doctor while discussing her hysterectomy, but only after confirming her husband was already dead.
Not until after menopause. She was born in the rural US American south some time in the 1920s (the date is known, I just forget). She grew up during the great depression, never went to school, only knew what she learned from her mother, who lived the same way, and only socialized with other women at church, who also lived and grew up the same way. She could read and count well enough to follow a recipe and write enough to leave her husband a note, but that was about it. She was raised to believe that if she said no to her husband in the bedroom, he would divorce her, word would spread around town that she wasn’t a “good woman” and she would end up an old spinster, the worst thing a woman could possibly be.
Yeah, that was only discovered in the 1990s.
I mean, if you can’t figure out a pattern after birth 3… You might be mentally underdeveloped.
That’s what happens when a wife is not allowed to say no and birth control doesn’t exist. Could also represent having sex only 15 times over 16 years and getting pregnant every time. My grandmother swore all my grandfather needed to do was look at her and she was pregnant yet again.
How many of those old kids were acting as parents because the folks were too busy fucking?
The two oldest, seated in front, are tending two newborn babies. Presumably the parents are off somewhere else, fucking.
They didn’t think about it they just did it.
I came from a big family like that. My mother had 13 children and 11 of us survived long enough to get married and start our own families. Lost one sister to fibroids and another to gang violence.
My mum have 6 children, she call us her pension plan
Please stop. The planet is overcrowded as it is.
Dude. They just said two of their siblings died. How about you stop?
The planet is not overcrowded, the West just exploits it with sheer arrogance and greed till it fucking implodes.
Based and factual.
Its not, but this is still a shitty reason to make a person exist and bitch deserves to hang if its not entirely a joke.
I love being childless.
I love children … in 15 minute doses. That’s why being a childless school bus driver is so great.
Was literally thinking this while making coffee this morning. It’s Saturday. I didn’t have a good sleep. But now I can play video games all day and maybe have a nap later. Then going out at 8pm, until whenever I feel like. None of this would be possible with kids.
*childfree!
Definitely not free, little fuckers are expensive AF :D
A 20 year credit card you can never pay off.
That’s like 2 decades of pushing out kids.
To be fair, I don’t think grandma pumped out 252 children because she enjoyed the sex.
My grandmother had her first child out of wedlock at the age of 14, her second child (my mom) out of wedlock with a different father at the age of 16, and her third child out of wedlock with yet another different father at the age of 17. And this was all in the 1930s. I strongly suspect grandma really enjoyed the sex – otherwise, why go through all the social approbation and abandonment by her family that went along with it?
Yea she definitely loved that D.
Nobody asks to get kicked in the nuts twice do they?
Can’t have been that bad.
Societal pressure to produce children as woman has definitely been a big thing back then. Hell, it is still a thing today, just not as much.
My dad is 70 and he was the youngest of 14 kids…
Grandma, you know better. Everyone was just as horny and kinky back then as they are today. You’re STILL horny and kinky Grandma!
I’m convinced that’s why “wash behind your ears” was such a big deal. It feels great getting kissed/licked there, and no one wants to do that if you’re gross.
You might be right!
Eight survived…
Dunno, but if I remember correctly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries child mortality was very high in some places, especially where there is little access to medical services, and certain vaccines have yet to be developed. That’s why some impoverished families became large because survival was on top of the list, and nearly all the children had to find work early on.
That and in combination with very little access to contraception and abortion. Women had as many babies as came from being married and having sex.
Bros gotta start pulling out
or butt-secks
Or maybe they could even consider taking a break from sex altogether
No
Government minder here wants more meat for the wars
