Jean's Journal: May altars and low birth rates

by Jean Farrell

Dear readers, most of us are the last generation who made May altars so I decided to add this one here today. It is a photograph of an altar I put together for a play recently. (I should have removed the label from the jam-jar!)

In our classrooms, long ago, the nuns’ May altars had white linen clothes on them. These altars had proper tall vases containing fancy flowers. The statues of Our Lady were nearly as tall as a four-year-old child! Standing in front of them, we sang beautiful hymns. My favourites were ‘Hail Queen of Heaven’ and ‘I’ll sing a hymn to Mary, the mother of my God’.

In our houses, at home, things were different. We found the cleanest tea-towel to lay our little statue on. We put some wild flowers into an empty jam-jar, cow-slips, blue-bells and butter-cups. I remember being delighted with our lovely May altar. As children, we all knelt in front of it to say the rosary, after our tea, during the month of May. Different times.

Different times indeed, also, re: health and safety. I wrote about soap boxes last week. I mentioned that I never saw girls on these, they were an ‘all-male’ sport. However, a woman was in touch to say that she clearly remembers her sister and herself ‘stealing’ their brother’s soap box.

The two of them sat into it and sped down the hill in Bastion Street, outside McCay’s. They gathered speed as they travelled down the hill and then turned the corner into Main Street. It came a stop outside Sean’s Bar. She LOVED it! No brakes and no helmets!

However, I’ve also heard of a lad who fell off one, as it sped down a hill, on a main road in town. He broke his arm on the day before he made his First Holy Communion. Poor lad.

The new modern prams would be useless as soapboxes. Their wheels are much much too small.

Remember the big solid prams of old? The same one was used for all ten babies in our house. And then, when it eventually became redundant, it provided many hours of fun for all my brothers, as a marvellous soap box! And this was long before we heard the term, ‘Reuse and Recycle.’ Different times.

A huge problem, in this different world we live in, is the falling birth rate in most countries. The problem is that there won’t be enough young people working to provide pensions for the large number of older folk who will still be alive. I’ve written about this previously.

China, Japan and South Korea tried many incentives to encourage young couples to have more than one child, including offering large sums of money to them. All their efforts failed. These countries have admitted defeat. In order to increase their birth-rates they have decided to formally welcome tax-paying migrants. As a result, these countries’ foreign-born populations have doubled in just a decade.

France is determined to keep its population French! Emmanuel Macron’s government has decided to write a letter to every 29-year-old in the country, male and female. I’m quoting now from an article in the Irish Times, “The letter will tell them that they have a biological clock and are not getting any younger. The females should avail of the free egg-freezing service on offer for women aged 29 to 37.” These healthy frozen eggs will allow them have healthy (French) children - well into their 40s.

What Russia is doing to keep their population Russian has echoes of times past here in Ireland. I read, “Russia's dwindling birth rate has been one of President Putin's main worries during his 25-year rule. With Moscow sending hundreds of thousands of young men to the front in Ukraine, the problem has only worsened.”

This is their solution: “Under new guidelines doctors will ask women how many children they want to have. If the woman answers that she intends having none, it is recommended to send the patient for a consultation with a medical psychologist - with the goal of forming a positive attitude towards having children.”

How the psychologist will ‘form a positive attitude’ in the woman’s mind is not mentioned!

This approach has echoes of past times in Ireland. “How many children have you?” priests asked mothers, in confession, long ago. If they answered that they only had three or four, they were told to, “Go home and do you duty.” And the mothers did what they were told!

The following might explain why the women did what they were told.

Yesterday, I came across a reference written by the principal, who was a nun, of the Convent of Mercy, St Peter’s, Athlone, in November 1957. The nun was writing the reference for an 18-year-old student, for whom she had the height of praise. She listed the girl’s great qualities.

Note number one. The nun wrote, “Mary is docile, straightforward, conscientious and industrious.” Docile means ‘willing to be submissive’. In other words, ‘Mary will obey rules without asking questions. She will comply with the norm and do what she is told’.

Are Russian women as docile as Irish mothers were long ago, I wonder?

How family life has changed! The basic facts are - mothers now go out to work. One or two children are as many as they can afford, and as many as they can manage. Nothing will induce them to have more, it seems.

And furthermore, rearing children (who are no longer docile!) is not easy!

jeanfarrell@live.ie