Rediscovered 1960’s Instructions For New Mothers Are Less Than Groovy

The 60’s is often thought of as a romantic beacon of tie-dyed freedom, peace, great music, and love all round – but it’s easy to forget just how much certain things have changed for the better in the ‘mere’ five decade’s since.

Okay, so there seems nothing ‘mere’ about five decades when you realise you can’t get up and out of a chair without making the sounds of a haunted house, but bear with me…

One Facebook user recently posted this photo of a list of rules and ‘instructions for mothers’ who have recently given birth. It was found by Micala Gabrielle Henson when her mother was ‘going through her things’, and it is a fascinating read.

(Photo Credit: Micala Gabrielle Henson)

 

While the third point, which states ‘Do not smoke while baby is in the room’, is fairly sound advice I think we can all admit – the sheet as a whole (typed out on a typewriter with token coffee stain for true 60s effect) leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, new mothers were restricted to seeing their child (without contact!) for one hour and forty-five minutes each day, and then politely requested, ‘do not ask to see baby at any other time’, because that would be just right out of order now wouldn’t it? The mother’s cooperation is then again even more politely re-requested again at the end of the document in very polite capital letters, ‘PLEASE CO-OPERATE. THANK YOU.’

 

Of course mothers were allowed specific extra time with their child outside of the baby carnival showing times. However, the amount of time mothers got with their babies seems dependent on whether they decided to breastfeed or bottle feed their baby, and it can, if you read very much into the document, be seen to be somewhat in favour of the latter. The ‘instructions’ for ‘bottling’ your baby (which I hope had nothing to do with what we now think of bottling as) contains no immensely strict parameters on who is allowed to be in the room with you when this happens (god forbid people should see a baby breastfeeding, especially the father! Far too lurid!), and nor does it suggest you’ll simply be left to it on your own as is with the ‘Nursing’ option. The ‘Bottling’ option apparently consists of waiting for the nurse to come and help you, while the ‘Nursing’ option reads very much along the lines of ‘on your own head be it…’ (Insert disapproving 60’s era eye roll).

What is also lacking in this very informative list of rules is exactly when the father is allowed to have any contact with the baby… oh wait, that’s because the father isn’t allowed any contact. The only time contact is allowed is when ‘Nursing’ is happening, but no visitors are allowed at that time ‘including father’. The fact that a father isn’t permitted to so much as hold their own child may seem baffling, but I suppose they’ll get more than enough quality time with their new baby through a sheet of glass and across a room full of babies for an hour and forty-five minutes a day anyway.

 

And yeah okay, joking aside, while it’s easy to point at the past and laugh at it for not doing things how we would now, it is immensely useful to use documents such as these to see how far we have come, and in turn point towards how we can become even more progressive as a society. We still live in a time where shops feel the need to put up ‘Breastfeeding welcome here’ signs.

(Photo Credit: breastfedbabies.org)

Even though it’s great that more and more shops and businesses are including themselves in this movement, the goal is surely to have people in another ‘mere’ five decades time (I know, scary thought) are looking back at our signs and thinking, ‘oh my god, imagine having to go to specific places to breastfeed… how close minded’. At the end of the day it is surely a parent’s choice how they want to feed their child, and if they want to breastfeed they should not feel insecure about doing so.

While I may still listen to The Beatles, The Bee Gees, and The Beach Boys, wishing to be dancing round in clothes that smell like shops nowadays where you buy weird hats and scarves from, I’m glad of how far we’ve come in certain ways… even if it means I have to listen to Ed Sheeran. AAx

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