Premature Baby to Becoming Other, France and Birth Rates

[Beyond_Ideologies]

BO
Thank you for your mail about Agen and low birth rate in France. I
will try and find out about Agen and condolence cards.
Unfortunately on my French side (mother side) my family lived in a
very poor and "minority" area and had a very high birth rate
so much so that 5 of my grand mother's brothers emigrated as sheperds
to Nevada, California (have you heard of Basque sheperds ?).
My grand mother complained about having 13 children because she said
she could not care well for them. She also cursed the village
priest when he told her that God blesses large families. She also said
that she would have preferred her husband to be killed in the First
World War, like her neighbour's husband because she then would have
had fewer children and a pension. It sounds cruel but she had to
till the fields side by side with her husband as well as look after
her children and animals and garden. My mother had an old woman friend
whose
mother became crazy after giving birth to her 15th child. An old
doctor told me that women usually died when giving birth to their 18th
child.
Doctors fought against the church but most of all it was thanks to the
bloody First World War that French people started refusing to have
children that would be killed in wars. Men would learn contraceptive
methods from others when they went for military service. Unfortunately
my grand father had already 6 children and being a peasant was
exempted from military duty.
His youngest child, my aunt, kept telling me that she refused to send
money to the third world countries as long as they did not reduce
their
birth rate.
Premature baby.