There she toils, doing her
housework at night. Her health goes, and the crowded conditions and
lack of necessities in the home help to bring about disease--especially
tuberculosis. Under the circumstances, the woman's chances of
recovering from each succeeding childbirth grow less. Less too are
the chances of the child's surviving, as shown by tables in another
chapter. Unwanted children, poverty, ill health, misery, death--these
are the links in the chain, and they are common to most of the
families in the class described in the preceding chapter.
Nor is the full story of the woman's sufferings yet told. Grievous as
is her material condition, her spiritual deprivations are still
greater. By the very fact of its existence, mother love demands its
expression toward the child. By that same fact, it becomes a necessary
factor in the child's development. The mother of too many children, in
a crowded home where want, ill health and antagonism are perpetually
created, is deprived of this simplest personal expression. She can
give nothing to her child of herself, of her personality. Training is
impossible and sympathetic guidance equally so. Instead, such a mother
is tired, nervous, irritated and ill-tempered; a determent, often,
instead of a help to her children.
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