Thanks for input on this thread, in response to my question to Jessica
Billowitz about whether there was any ideological basis for the family sizes
she described among the users of the rest home where she works.  I hope no
one interpreted my question as an attempt to pass judgment on a community.
I recognize the many forces at play, and I am naturally curious.

Gabrielle Palmer has some interesting material on this in 'The Politics of
Breastfeeding' in which she points out that the value of women as breeding
animals was first systematically exploited for quantity in industrial
society, and artificial feeding was an integral part of it, either by
wet-nurse or by man-made concoctions.  If natural ecology is left alone it
has been historically rare for children to appear oftener than every three
or four years, making two-digit numbers of children the anomaly, or the
result of multiple births.  (And even Jo-Anne with two sets of twins hasn't
reached ten, by a long shot!)

There are indeed many things which may be valued in a given society in
addition to, or instead of, sustained breastfeeding of each child.  I was
interested in what, if any, of these things might be at play in a community
where women regularly give birth to over ten children.

I wonder how much time one has to savor the joy that children bring, when
one has 18 of them.  Especially, savoring the joy of each individual child
would be a challenge to me, but I live in a different kind of community to
the women in Jessica's rest home.  The very fact that someone has devised
rest homes for women after a birth, tells me that the community recognizes
the taxing nature of their lives.  Personally I think it regrettable that
breastfeeding is viewed as part of what taxes them, but my personal agenda
has breastfeeding pretty high up on the 'essentials' list.

Where I live and work, it is considered entirely normal to have three or
four children in the course of six or seven years, and it is considered
normal for mothers of young children to be tired all the time, and to 'need'
to get away from their children on a regular basis, to have 'time for
themselves'.  Weaning before a year is also considered normal, because 'I've
been either pregnant or breastfeeding for most of the time since my first
baby was conceived' and we accept that women 'want their bodies back'.  All
these things are aspects of motherhood which seem less prominent when the
children are farther apart.  Using my non-random sample of one, I also spent
more time than not, either pregnant or breastfeeding from 1980 to 1988, but
the ratio of time spent pregnant to time spent breastfeeding was heavily in
favor of breastfeeding while not pregnant.  I wonder whether I too would
have felt encroached upon, had I experienced a couple more pregnancies and
births in the same time period.  As it was, I never felt desperate to get
away, or to stop breastfeeding, or to 'get my body back'.  And from my
present vantage point those years seem like a brief moment that I would
gladly have prolonged if I could, so I am in no way implying that two is a
more 'right' number of children, even for myself as mother of two.

The basis for my family size was my upbringing, not heavily ideological in a
formal way, though planned pregnancy and maternal participation in the
educated, paid work force in society were strongly valued in my family of
origin in the USA.  Planned pregnancy is never talked about in Norway.  A
woman will *never* be asked routinely when seeking prenatal care, whether
the pregnancy was planned, though she may mention it in passing.  It is not
noted in the chart unless it is thought to have relevance for her care, not
often.  It is impolite in Norway to ask about intent when discussing a
pregnancy, for any woman.  But I regularly meet women whose high birth
frequency is influenced by religion and/or culture and it is very difficult
for them to articulate what this demands of them.  It is difficult because
it is like the fish not seeing the water, and because if they do see the
water, it is not always acceptable for them to comment on it.

Most of these women are ethnic Norwegians, just for the record.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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