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The Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger
page 27 of 180 (15%)
them." She confessed quite frankly that she believed in feeding babies,
and gave them everything anybody told her to give them. She began to
give them at the age of one month, bread, potatoes, egg, crackers, etc.
For the last baby that died, this mother had bought a goat and gave its
milk to the baby; the goat got sick, but the mother continued to give
her baby its milk until the goat went dry. Moreover, she directed the
feeding of her daughter's baby until it died at the age of three months.
"On account of the many children she had had, the neighbors consider her
an authority on baby care."

Lest this case be considered too tragically ridiculous to be accepted
as typical, the reader may verify it with an almost interminable list of
similar cases.(1) Parental irresponsibility is significantly illustrated
in another case:

A mother who had four live births and two stillbirths in twelve years
lost all of her babies during their first year. She was so anxious that
at least one child should live that she consulted a physician concerning
the care of the last one. "Upon his advice," to quote the government
report, "she gave up her twenty boarders immediately after the child's
birth, and devoted all her time to it. Thinks she did not stop her hard
work soon enough; says she has always worked too hard, keeping boarders
in this country, and cutting wood and carrying it and water on her back
in the old country. Also says the carrying of water and cases of beer
in this country is a great strain on her." But the illuminating point in
this case is that the father was furious because all the babies died.
To show his disrespect for the wife who could only give birth to babies
that died, he wore a red necktie to the funeral of the last. Yet this
woman, the government agent reports, would follow and profit by any
instruction that might be given her.
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