Vicky

I was reading some of Queen Victoria's amazingly sharp letters to her daughter about women and child bearing. She writes, "It is indeed too hard and dreadful what we have to go through and men ought to have an adoration for one, and indeed to do everything to make up, for what after all they alone are the cause of! I must say it is a bad arrangement."

Bad arrangement indeed :) She would know! She was pregnant nine times I think. I know of and have met women of my grandmother's generation who had been pregnant more than twelve times. If you really think about it, they have had to deal with pregnancy and nursing and taking care of toddlers pretty much through out their adult life. That sort of puts their achievements, however small it may seem now, be it tending plants or learning prayer songs or even cooking a variety of dishes, into perspective doesn't it?