Quote Originally Posted by Edwina's Secretary
I assume your grandmother gave birth to your father. I know that is the way it worked in my family!

I said.... Perhaps I should have been more cleared and said delivered by midwife so as not to suggest created by the midwife....

According to my father's stories...poor families especially...only sought medical assistance in an emergency...which did not include childbirth. But, in any case, you paid cash. Or chickens. Medical insurance came later.

When I see people picking strawberries in the fields around here I struggle to think they are getting a free ride and not making their own way....

It is all too true that immigrants (as well as many others!) in this country had a rough time of it and social safety nets were pretty much nonexistent. Hurt at work....oh well! Unable to work because of age or disabled? That's what kids are for....to support you. No food?....there's the bread line.

I just don't know if we really want to use those good old days as guiding principles today.
SORRY... missed that!!! Yes, you are corrrect. My grandmother did give birth to my father. At least that's the storyline... I wasn't actually there to witness the event you know!!!