book also gave helpful hints, which followed the child-rearing edicts of the day, and Rose followed them.
“Don’t let Baby suck finger, pacifier, etc. It causes irregular teeth, etc., later.
Never
play with Baby till over six months—then, seldom.
Excitement harms.
Baby Must Have: Regular Hours for Sleeping, Feeding, etc. Good habits are as easy to form as bad ones. Protection from Contagion—No Kissing on mouth or hands! ‘Colds’ or disease never allowed near. Keep off floor—Dirt, Germs, Danger! Whooping-cough is often fatal to infants.”
Peggy’s first words were
Dada
and
Tick-tock.
She said Mama much later. Rose felt a little hurt. She wondered if it was because she, the reluctantly strict mother, let Peggy scream for food or attention when it was not time to give them to her, and that Ben, the kindhearted father, couldn’t bear to hear these cries and went into the room to pick her up.
“She’s a Daddy’s girl,” Ben said, pleased.
But of course he couldn’t nurse her, so Rose knew she was still number one. Now when she went to the park with Elsie and the other mothers, she had her own baby, and was now a true member of the club.
Hugh brought little Peggy a Victorian English highchair from his shop. You could take it apart when the baby was older and put it together again to become a small chair and table for meals. He was devoted to his niece, and loved to play with her during the brief periods when the book said it was allowed.
Since travel was not recommended for small children because of all the threatening and unknown germs that might be encountered, William and Celia made their first trip to New York to see their new grandchild. Rose and Ben took them to a few nice restaurants, but not to any speakeasies, and Rose took them to see the sights. The economy was booming, the city was prosperous, and all sorts of new tunnels and highways had been built and were being built, so Manhattan was no longer in any way an isolated island. The Smiths were only two of a stream of tourists. Celia was thrilled with everything, but Rose had the feeling that her father was only being good-natured when he smiled as she dragged them around. She could see he had lost so much of his energy in these later years, and when they left he said, “New York is too busy for me.”
“Not for me,” Celia said. “I could live here easily. We’ll be back.”
“I hope not,” Hugh said when she was gone.
But whether or not they would come back was not an issue, because in the fall the stock market crashed. People were jumping out of windows. Fortunes, that had only existed on paper because they had been bought on margin, were now lost. Since wills always had to be written and executed, Ben did not lose his job, but he had to take a cut in pay. There was only enough money for essentials now. Hugh’s antique shop became more of an upscale secondhand store, as people were forced to sell their cherished belongings to eat and pay the rent. Maude and Walter, with four growing children to feed, sold their car, and Maude tearfully told Rose on the phone that she’d had an abortion. In fact, illegal abortions soared, and the disguised birth control ads became more specific, if you knew what you were looking for. Lysol now promised “Complete freedom from fear.”
People who knew how simply stopped having babies. An only child was the norm, two was the sign of a family with some money. But in the midst of these dark days Rose decided she had to have another child before she got too old. She didn’t want Peggy to grow up alone. She’d had a wonderful family to grow up with, and what if something happened to her the way it had to her mother? Peggy would be all by herself. If Ben remarried, who knew what the woman would be like? Rose couldn’t help worrying. It seemed she worried about everything lately, and who would not?
Their second child, another girl, who looked just like Peggy, was born in 1931. They named her Joan, one
“Don’t let Baby suck finger, pacifier, etc. It causes irregular teeth, etc., later.
Never
play with Baby till over six months—then, seldom.
Excitement harms.
Baby Must Have: Regular Hours for Sleeping, Feeding, etc. Good habits are as easy to form as bad ones. Protection from Contagion—No Kissing on mouth or hands! ‘Colds’ or disease never allowed near. Keep off floor—Dirt, Germs, Danger! Whooping-cough is often fatal to infants.”
Peggy’s first words were
Dada
and
Tick-tock.
She said Mama much later. Rose felt a little hurt. She wondered if it was because she, the reluctantly strict mother, let Peggy scream for food or attention when it was not time to give them to her, and that Ben, the kindhearted father, couldn’t bear to hear these cries and went into the room to pick her up.
“She’s a Daddy’s girl,” Ben said, pleased.
But of course he couldn’t nurse her, so Rose knew she was still number one. Now when she went to the park with Elsie and the other mothers, she had her own baby, and was now a true member of the club.
Hugh brought little Peggy a Victorian English highchair from his shop. You could take it apart when the baby was older and put it together again to become a small chair and table for meals. He was devoted to his niece, and loved to play with her during the brief periods when the book said it was allowed.
Since travel was not recommended for small children because of all the threatening and unknown germs that might be encountered, William and Celia made their first trip to New York to see their new grandchild. Rose and Ben took them to a few nice restaurants, but not to any speakeasies, and Rose took them to see the sights. The economy was booming, the city was prosperous, and all sorts of new tunnels and highways had been built and were being built, so Manhattan was no longer in any way an isolated island. The Smiths were only two of a stream of tourists. Celia was thrilled with everything, but Rose had the feeling that her father was only being good-natured when he smiled as she dragged them around. She could see he had lost so much of his energy in these later years, and when they left he said, “New York is too busy for me.”
“Not for me,” Celia said. “I could live here easily. We’ll be back.”
“I hope not,” Hugh said when she was gone.
But whether or not they would come back was not an issue, because in the fall the stock market crashed. People were jumping out of windows. Fortunes, that had only existed on paper because they had been bought on margin, were now lost. Since wills always had to be written and executed, Ben did not lose his job, but he had to take a cut in pay. There was only enough money for essentials now. Hugh’s antique shop became more of an upscale secondhand store, as people were forced to sell their cherished belongings to eat and pay the rent. Maude and Walter, with four growing children to feed, sold their car, and Maude tearfully told Rose on the phone that she’d had an abortion. In fact, illegal abortions soared, and the disguised birth control ads became more specific, if you knew what you were looking for. Lysol now promised “Complete freedom from fear.”
People who knew how simply stopped having babies. An only child was the norm, two was the sign of a family with some money. But in the midst of these dark days Rose decided she had to have another child before she got too old. She didn’t want Peggy to grow up alone. She’d had a wonderful family to grow up with, and what if something happened to her the way it had to her mother? Peggy would be all by herself. If Ben remarried, who knew what the woman would be like? Rose couldn’t help worrying. It seemed she worried about everything lately, and who would not?
Their second child, another girl, who looked just like Peggy, was born in 1931. They named her Joan, one
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