In the Good Olde Tymes

[ladypuglover]

Oddly in my family history ( and in my husbands ) - people seem to be living LESS long with each generation. I don't know why on earth that is, but I don't like it at all.

We were talking about this recently .. not sure what the factors are - maybe because of more pollution/toxins/etc ??

I know it's unusual.

I have a theory that is all the ready made food along with factors you mentioned. Just a theory but it really might have value.

[LucySnowe]

I would have died aged six months from meningitis, and my sister at birth from being a seven-month preemie.

Fun times! :eyeroll:

[gilora]

I have a theory that is all the ready made food along with factors you mentioned. Just a theory but it really might have value.

There's a book called The Primal Blueprint that discusses these issues. (Yes, it's a health/diet book but it's interesting reading.)

Back to the Good Olde Days -- even if I had survived, I'd still be married to my abusive alcoholic first husband. Shit, he'd probably be beating on me and our several children right now. I'm so grateful I was able to extricate myself (pre-kids) from that marriage. I also never would have been allowed to marry Mr. gilora as he is Jewish and I am not.

[dawn]

I'd still be around, because I've survived all childhood illnesses and I'm pretty hardy other than that. I'd probably have no more than 5 teeth though, at the ripe old age of 39.

[pixydust]

Possibly a month old, I had a cold (and a 2 year old brother!) that progressed, badly, I needed antibiotics and a breathing treatment. I also had scarlet fever at 4 and pnuemonia at 5 that had me in the hospital for 10 days.

Oh, and if I had survived all of that, I would have died in childbirth (22). I can't dialate past 3cm and my BP was nearly stroke level (WITH drugs!), so I would have eventually died.

[clarinetpower]

I wouldn't have made it past 6 weeks (Rubella).

Then, if I did, bee sting would have taken me out at some point.

My mom wouldn't have had me anyway--scarlet fever.

My husband would have been fine, though. His doc actually told his mom to stop breast feeding him because he was getting so fat. :lol:

[Kailis]

I would have made it about 6 weeks, when my downfall would have been a case of pneumonia, which was severe enough to land me in the hospital in an oxygen tent for a week. Had I somehow survived that, I probably would still be gone by this point. If it wasn't my asthma, it would have been my very new-found allergy to walnuts and pine nuts (2 ER trips in the past month!)

Of course, this is assuming my birth had actually taken place. I'm fairly certain that my mom wouldn't have survived her childhood (severe asthma) or adulthood (she had a brain tumor). My dad might not have survived the accident that took one of his eyes. That is insanely morbid to think about...

I think in terms of day-to-day life, I would have done well. While I do have anxiety and depression that would have been largely ignored, I have found that being insanely domestic helps calm me/ give my brain enough time to process the thought tornadoes I occasionally get. SAHDs have nothing on me when I'm distracting myself from a panic attack! :D

[pixydust]

All these stories of woman and infants almost dieing in labor/childbirth in modern times confuses the hell out of me that some fundy/hippy women want an unassisted birth or refuse any form of prenatal care. You can have a home birth if you and baby are deemed safe enough and have a qualified midwife if that is what you want but for the love of your child, have that midwife!

This! I would have died in childbirth with my 1st (well, all 3 had the same issue, I can't dialate past 3), my mother would have died with her 3rd, my sister-in-law would have died with her 1st, I know a few other women who would have died, too. I just don't get it! Have a homebirth (I was born at home, with a midwife) if you want, but have a well trained and certified midwife who knows when things are going bad and will get you to the hospital!

[emmiedahl]

This! I would have died in childbirth with my 1st (well, all 3 had the same issue, I can't dialate past 3), my mother would have died with her 3rd, my sister-in-law would have died with her 1st, I know a few other women who would have died, too. I just don't get it! Have a homebirth (I was born at home, with a midwife) if you want, but have a well trained and certified midwife who knows when things are going bad and will get you to the hospital!

According to unassisted homebirthers, my problems must have been caused by the interventions. Going several weeks overdue, high birth weight and small pelvis, bleeding and tearing, shoulder dystocia: these things are all caused by the eebil doctors interfering. :roll:

[FuManchu]

I was three weeks premature and put in an incubator - absolutely standard and no cause for alarm these days, but no idea what would have happened without modern equipment.

It's worth noting that my family would almost certainly have had a maid - otherwise known as a woman working outside the home, away from her father's headship. The 19th century ran on such women, but you'll never hear Vision Forum mention it.

[Wolfie]

All these stories of woman and infants almost dieing in labor/childbirth in modern times confuses the hell out of me that some fundy/hippy women want an unassisted birth or refuse any form of prenatal care. You can have a home birth if you and baby are deemed safe enough and have a qualified midwife if that is what you want but for the love of your child, have that midwife!

My sister and I really wonder about this too. If it weren't for assistance, my mom would likely have died with me or my brother. (My sister's birth was normal, no water breaking 6 weeks early, no toxemia...) I raise animals and when there is a bad outcome in a birth, my sister shakes her head and again repeats how she doesn't understand why people think a hospital is a bad thing.

(when I was born, since I was 6 lbs, they didn't worry about me at all, but I did end up back and forth for a while. I think just a few years later they started keeping babies in longer based on their due date, not just their weight and appearance of health.)

[Hestia]

I was an easy homebirth and was never sick enough as a child to warrant my death despite the fact thatmy parents were fundies, so they mostly used home remedies! But I never got anything dangerous, just the usual childhood tummy bugs. The chicken pox was a very light case as was the measles. My sister may have died and my father would be dead from heart disease by now. So I would have been one of the lucky ones that survived, but I would have had to take of my mother. My family come from english servant stock (mostly, save some german jew and scots/welsh) so I would probably be working from dawn to dusk for some wealthier people, I certainly wouldn't be able to get the wonderful education I have now¬

[pixydust]

According to unassisted homebirthers, my problems must have been caused by the interventions. Going several weeks overdue, high birth weight and small pelvis, bleeding and tearing, shoulder dystocia: these things are all caused by the eebil doctors interfering. :roll:

Oooh, after I had my first, a lady on the forum I was on told me that I didn't need my c-section! It was because of the interventions! Uh-huh, the interventions caused nearly stroke level BP, my sons heart to stop during labor, and my damaged cervix that will.not.dialate! My BP was so high, I was on an IV for 2.5 days after he was born, and it caused my vision to get even worse.

I loved my c-sections, so does my hubby ;)

[jenny_islander]

Yeah, extremely high BP is one of those things where you don't do a trial of labor, you don't wait and see, you just stabilize the mom and get the baby out.

Somebody was talking about what our ancestors were doing . . . hmm. I'm one of those North European Mutts. I only know the economic circumstances of my direct paternal ancestors (Irish), who were willing to travel steerage all the way across the Atlantic to get here shortly after the Civil War. My mother's people were English/Welsh on one side and German on the other. What they were doing 150 years ago I don't know, but the very lack of any family stories suggests to me that they were at most petit-bourgeois. The British ancestors appear to have been on the Anglican side of the break with the Pope, so they probably were not terribly oppressed, and there is an ancestral manor (very small) on that side. I suppose I could spin an elaborate fantasy about medieval ladyhood on that thread. But I belong to the SCA, so I know better.

[emmiedahl]

One of my great-great-grandmothers wrote down her experiences, which a family member published with a vanity press just so we would have them. She had more than ten children and I think 3 or 4 made it to adulthood. She lost three kids in one day to some childhood illness--I think measles, but I am not sure. She had very nice births, just pushed them out and washed them and moved on, but she wrote about several friends who died in childbirth.

One thing that really struck me was that there was no childcare and yet she had to work. Most of the time she could keep them with her, but sometimes it just was not possible. During the harvest, she had to work or the family would not eat. So she hung the baby from a tree near the fields and left the toddlers at home. I think one of these times was when the multiple children died in a day; she had to leave sick preschoolers at home or they would starve to death, but they died of unattended fever while she was gone.

I should get a copy of that book and send it to a few of our fundies. But of course these were evil Jews in Kazakhstan, so they were not under God's protection I guess. It was a really sad time and the fact that she could write it like no biggie shows how normal these tragedies were. My family was not poor, either. They were educated and generally middle class, definitely wealthier than a lot of the people around them. They ate every day and wore decent clothing and paid for the education of all of their children, which were all luxuries in their time and place.

[ElphabaGalinda]

I probably would have died as an infant due to a combination of severe pneumonia and asthma. And if I hadn't, I probably would have been so poor I never would have gotten enough to eat and would have had to work full time in some capacity from a very young age. Oh and if I hadn't died, I would probably be trapped in a horrible marriage with a man because of the whole gay being illegal thing, so that would have been what I would have had to do instead of being true to myself and having the option of openly falling in love with a woman and marrying her some day.

Do the people who idealize the good old days realize what they actually were? I would think not, but it would be easy for them to find evidence that it wasn't was sunshine and puppies as they're making it out to be. I think the current days are pretty good, and I'm constantly thankful for both where and when I was born.

[jenny_islander]

The people who fantasize about the Good Olde Tymes (Have none of them read "Miniver Cheevy?" Well, considering the SOTDRT, I guess not.) always think of themselves as being on top. Even the ones who fantasize about their ramshackle hobby farm being a Homestead for Jesus think of themselves as the solid citizen yeoman farmers, never the ones who have to borrow until they become debt slaves because the crops failed. And let's not even mention that actual yeoman farmers still owed taxes and labor to their overlords, while actual citizen farmers out homesteading in valiant solitude were mostly the recipients of land subsidies from the government.

And of course there's the complete failure to understand how.much.work everything was. Even in a comfortable Victorian home with servants, life pretty much stopped for laundry day. Just washing clothes took everyone working together, accepting a hasty dinner instead of a proper meal, and going to bed dogtired. Even the paterfamilias was out in the back garden in his shirtsleeves, beating the rugs.

[smittykins]

I was born with spina bifida(open spine), so I would probably be dead or at the very least, severely disabled. I was extremely lucky even with modern technology in that I can walk, and a lot of people with it can't.

[Trynn]

Let's see. Countless ear infections as a baby until roughly the age of.... MAYBE I stopped having them so constantly at around 3-5, after some very strong medical intervention (it felt like I was always on yucky tasting medicine)

If I would've survived that (without going deaf) Then I certainly would've died my senior year of high school. I didn't have pneumonia, but they were worried I might, and they were toying with the idea of throwing me in the hospital anyway and were not happy that I waited so long to seek help. If no help had existed, there goes my life.

Not to mention all the diseases I could've died from that I was vaccinated against... and I could've caught strep throat from my dad...

I also wouldn't have my good friend Jacq, who swallowed amniotic fluid upon coming into the world and was promptly whisked off to the NICU.

If it weren't for modern medicine, I'd be dead. As it is I still suffer from non life threatening issues that the doctors just can NOT find a cure for, but at least the symptoms can be suppressed. I shudder to think how I would be in the victorian era. It had its advantages, sure, but personally, I'm glad I don't live in that century.

[PennySycamore]

I was born with severe Rh jaundice (erythroblastosis fetalis). Exchange transfusions were only developed a couple of years before I was born and I required three of them to survive. The doctors told my mom that if she were to ever get pregnant again, the baby would not live. My mom was smart; she had her tubes tied.

edited for riffle

[LIzzieB]

I was a breach birth, eventuating in a caesarean - so likely that neither my mother nor I would have survived the birth. I was also born with severely dislocated hips, which without the intervention of amazing surgeons and physiotherapists, I would not have walked or had major mobility problems (as it was, I didn't learn to walk until I was 2!) I also had a significant number of ear and sinus infections requiring surgery, and mild bouts of asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. So even if I had made it through birth, I would have likely died young or become deaf and sickly. Combine that with mobility issues, and I would hardly have been a productive member of society, and highly vulnerable as marriage proposals would not have been forthcoming, nor would I have been able to independently earn a wage.

"Good old days" my arse.

[ilovetchotchkes]

My mother would have been dead from pneumonia. She catches BAD bronchitis every winter and ends up on like 3 courses of antibiotics for it.

My husband would have been an orphan. If my MIL hadn't died in childbirth with him (prolapsed uterus) she would have died at the age of 40 from breast cancer.

My sister would have died in childbirth. Well, maybe not, her emergency c was an induction gone horribly wrong, so who knows.

My labor and delivery, who knows. It was horrifically long, but my son was badly positioned, he wouldn't have died, it was me that had the issue with coping.

[MrsKay]

My father wouldn't have lived past a few months; he was literally starving to death b/c my grandmother didn't have enough milk for him. Mom... not sure. Her mother died when Mom was 3 days old, due to complications from toxemia. She could have easily taken Mom with her - it still happens now.

I would have been dead by 6 weeks due to a raging UTI, which almost killed me and left me with lovely scarring in that area. If I'd made it past that, I got measles when I was 1. If I'd lived into my teens, I would have died from a lung infection when I was pregnant at 16. If I'd made it out of that, my daughter and I both would have died in childbirth.

[JesusFightClub]

My dad would have died of TB, which he had as a baby.

The olden days don't sound like a shitload of fun, even as "far back" as my parents' youth. My dad had to leave school at 14 and get a job (I'm the first person from that side of the family to go to university, and the second, after my mum, from her side.) My mum and dad are really matter of fact about lots of stuff they never had and couldn't imagine having, and my mum had quite the fight to get to university. Whereas it was just assumed I would go, even though my mum and dad are both much smarter than me.

[Lillian]

I would have died as newborn. I very nearly died the day I was born in 1992 anyway. I was born not breathing and I'm very lucky to not be severely brain damaged. It freaks me out how close I came to such a different life.

My brother would be fine I think.

My mother, fine as far as I know.

Dad, yep pretty sure he'd be okay. He did have appendicitis in the 70s- but I remember reading about Roald Dahl's sister having appendix surgery in the early 1900s, so it depends what time period we're talking about here but there is a chance he'd have made it through in the 'good ole days'.