Why so many children?


Were contraceptives incredibly hard to come by back then? In the novel The Group, one of the characters (granted, in the U.S.) gets a diaphragm from a health clinic and that's in the 1930's.

I am just surprised that the families in these very poor homes aren't concerned that their economic state goes down further and further with each additional child. WHY DON'T THEY STOP?? Surely they can do the math?

(And are they unaware that there are ways to sexually satisfy a spouse that do not include intercourse?)

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Maybe if someone grows up with 8 brothers and sisters or something... it just seems like the norm, and something you repeat (?)

(But if I were the one doing the household finances in a family like that, I'd be like, "Okay, SADLY, we're already fighting each other for scraps of food...let's discuss this!!!")
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They actually talk a bit about this in one episode. Contraception wasn't very good at the time and it wasn't covered by National Health so it was expensive as well. No pill back then.

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think I'd rather bl@w my husband every night for thirty years than have 8 kids (!)
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For some families it was a religious thing as well. A lot of the churches frowned upon any type of contraception and advocated the rhythm method and seeing a blessing in what God gave you.

Also 8 kids is nothing. Did you see the woman in the first season who had 25 kids. Her poor Hoo-Ha.

This is the Media People. You want reality, look out a window.

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A large number of children in British families was more common up until the 1950/60s, than now. Contraception, or lack of it had a large part to play. Remember this series is set in a very poor area of Britain. Many working people had little if anything of their money left after bills etc. Most families at the time would have between 2 and 4 children. Families with 8 or more children were not unknown. Remember, these families would often occupy a three bedroom house. Girls in one room, boys in the other. Parents with the youngest one or two in another. Sometimes the youngest boys and girls would share a bedroom.

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Options for contraception were a diaphragm (messy ... especially if you shared one bathroom down the hall or on the landing with 5 other flats and had only cold running water and no privacy -- and still not terribly effective) and condoms (many men just wouldn't wear them, thicker and less sensitive than today's models, and typically associated with prostitutes. (Many women would have been horrified if their partner suggested using a condom ... "Where have you BEEN?")

"Other ways to satisfy a spouse?" Well .. sure ... if you REALLY want to do that with a partner who last bathed a week from last Tuesday and has been working hard on the docks 12 hours a day since then.

But yeah, even with lack of contraception the 'average' family, even at that time and in that place had 3-6 kids, not a dozen or more. So obviously they figured out something. Eventually.

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Your post made me laugh, Naomi. 

I agree that really large families were still the exception in the 50s. I was born in 1955 on a Brighton council estate. There were two families of 10-12 children, but most were much less than that.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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Your remarks are very right-on! There were 7 in our family, until my parents decided to break from the church fathers' ruling on birth control. I believe each one of us is the product of the failed rhythm method. Oh and ladies, don't forget the vinegar douches, my mama told me about those and how unreliable they were as well. I do not know how much truth there is to this, but large families were because life expectancy for children was short. Margaret Sanger was arrested in about 1916 for advocating contraception.

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I think it's also fair to say that "other ways" weren't necessarily that common in bedrooms at that time, such things being the province of prostitutes.



I'm the clever one; you're the potato one.

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Could it be catholicism? The pope said no contraceptives?


"What would you like to see on your honeymoon, Mrs. Cord?"
"Lots of lovely ceilings."

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I'm not confusing anything and don't know what you're talking about. You're the one who's in the dark. The pope has a say on EVERY catholic. I'm in the US and large families in the 50s and 60s were totally a result of the popes decree to not use birth control. My neighbor growing up had 12 children and she was a physician. I say this because, even with a medical degree, she didn't dare disavow her catholic religion. So, poor or not, babies were cranked out like crazy.

"What would you like to see on your honeymoon, Mrs. Cord?"
"Lots of lovely ceilings."

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There are about 4 million Catholics in England and Wales.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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There are about 4 million Catholics in England and Wales.


United Kingdom/Population (1960): 52.4 million

At less than 10% of the total population, I think it's fair to say England and the UK are NOT "Catholic countries", and the Pope did not heavily influence the family planning of the populace as a whole.

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No one is saying that the Pope "heavily influence[d] the family planning of the populace as a whole". It was put forward as a possible factor, among others, and is perfectly feasible.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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I am sorry but if you honestly think England was a catholic country in 1960s. You are delusional. England hasn't`t been a catholic country really since Mary I ( 1553-1558 ). Even if James II of England and VII of Scotland was the last catholic King from 1685 to 1688.

Thank you for the history lesson. However, as someone who has lived in England all her 61 years, it is superfluous.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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as someone who has lived in England all her 61 years


In the East End/Poplar? At 61, you would have been 4 in 1960 - how much did you know about birth control at that age? Sounds as if you you come from a Catholic enclave and have proffered a supposed general belief based on your own upbringing - "To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

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Must you make an issue of everything, njgill?

Not the East End, no. But only 50 miles away in Brighton (certainly not a Catholic enclave). And I would have been the same age as the children depicted in CTM, so would have been aware of the size of families in my area. As I said in a post further up the page, extremely large families were the exception than the norm. Factors contributing to larger families were varied and have been suggested in the posts on this page. Another factor in a (sizeable) minority would have been religious objection to certain forms of birth control. I was agreeing to that possibility - nothing more, nothing less. In fact, it was an explanation for at least one of the large families (dozen or so children) on my council estate. I am, of course, speaking about the 1950s - not present day.

There really is no need to make a meal of it.






If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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You're all missing the obvious, which is that the show takes place in a catholic parish, in a convent run by nuns. So the east end can't be all categorized as non-catholic back then.

Conversely, Sister Juliette didn't express any concern about a papal ruling, just her own moral issues. Which surprises me because in 1961, where I lived, it was in full force. Whatever. It just wasn't written that way.

"What would you like to see on your honeymoon, Mrs. Cord?"
"Lots of lovely ceilings."

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Tzukeeper, they are not Catholic nuns but Anglican. 



If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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Sister Juliette didn't express any concern about a papal ruling


...because the Pope is NOT the head of her church!

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Of what church? Catholic? He is where I live.

"What would you like to see on your honeymoon, Mrs. Cord?"
"Lots of lovely ceilings."

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What njgill is saying is that the Pope is not head of Sister Julienne's church because she's Anglican.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of sister Julienne's Anglican church, not the Catholic Pope.

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No, they're not Catholic, which is what everybody has been trying to tell you since before your most recent reply.

Google is your friend. (And will help you avoid making a fool of yourself in the future.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9084310/Nuns-from-the-order-that-inspired-Call-the-Midwife-never-miss-a-show.html

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The pope has a say on EVERY catholic. I'm in the US and large families in the 50s and 60s were totally a result of the popes decree to not use birth control. My neighbor growing up had 12 children and she was a physician. I say this because, even with a medical degree, she didn't dare disavow her catholic religion. So, poor or not, babies were cranked out like crazy.


I once asked my conservative Catholic uncle about it. A parent in the 1960s, he only had 2 kids. He said American Catholics were much more inclined to listen to ecology/population explosion doomsayers than the Pope. In retrospect, he wishes he'd ignored them and had more kids.

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