Stay at home mother is a gift from 1970s feminists.

The story of the transformation of the “housewife” into the “stay at home mother” providing “mother-care, not DAYCARE” in American society in the wake of the Pill and Roe v. Wade is an interesting one and there’s not much information on the internet about it because the idea that there was a transition (and that this transition destroyed a substantial amount of soft power among married women) is not compatible with either right wing or left wing narratives about the topic.

We didn’t really have the term before motherhood could be conceivably viewed as entirely intentional/optional, even within marriage.  And nobody seems to ask why it bloomed so suddenly and took over, when by its nature it explicitly separates motherhood from marriage, while housewife emphasizes, well, property benefits of marriage for women foremost.  Homemaker, it’s worth noting, has begun to turn up as a transition away from stay at home mother, but it lacks that wilful connecting of property with marriage and in fact shifts the domestic world to something a woman must make/build, rather than something she is inherently part of and maintaining/managing.

Since this is just thinky thoughts, I will close with the little data point that over half of American SAHMs use center-based daycare for children aged 0-4 and that we hit that point about 10 years ago and this is in every region of the country, not concentrated in one place, it’s about half everywhere.  Employed or not, it’s 80% for BA or higher-possessing mothers.

The Return of DES?

A short, mildly edited thread I did on DES. Might be relevant to the current concerns about the covid/coronavirus “vaccine” (although there are several, only a select few are granted to Americans to access). It’s essentially a summary of some very interesting details from Infogalatic/Wikipedia, and only touches the surface of a drug that clearly had far-reaching multi-order effects, including very possibility being a key factor of how we got here.

 

We are staring down the barrel of DES part 2. What was DES part 1? From IG/Wiki:

“Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a synthetic, non-steroidal estrogen first synthesized in 1938. From about 1940 to 1971, DES was given to pregnant women in the (mistaken) belief it would reduce the risk of pregnancy complications and losses.”

“In 1971, DES was shown to cause clear cell carcinoma, a rare vaginal tumor in girls and women who had been exposed to this drug in utero. “

“Individuals who were exposed to DES during their mothers’ pregnancies are commonly referred to as “DES daughters” and “DES sons”.”

DES was actually pretty great at treating prostate cancer of all things. Its use to prevent miscarriages was initially off-label during the 40s, a few years after it was developed.

Again from IG/Wik, bolding mine: “On July 1, 1947, the FDA approved the use of DES for this indication. The first such approval was granted to Bristol-Myers Squibb…. It was aggressively marketed and routinely prescribed. Sales peaked in 1953.“

DES was given to a beeeg chunk of Baby Boomer’s mommies. Meanwhile an Actual Double Blind Study found no benefit during the period when sales were peaking. Took 10 years for OBs to agree with that study. Ten.

The cancer link wasn’t even guessed at until 1971 and while the FDA advised against DES finally (remember they approved it fairly soon after off-label use), it wasn’t pulled until…1975. So a small chunk of Boomer and Gen X moms took it as well.

The best guess for pregnancy exposure is “millions”. It was even prescribed to preteen girls so they wouldn’t “come out too tall”.

Despite the cancer link, despite the known bad side effects, it was still prescribed for things like morning-after birth control and suppressing lactation after birth.

DES wasn’t taken off the market until 1997.

‘Ok you mentioned this cancer thing, and DES daughters/sons? Bwuh?’

DES was so horrifying because its risks were not primarily to the woman taking it. She had a modest increased breast cancer risk. Her in utero daughter had a ~40x~ risk of vaginal/cervical cancers.

IG/Wik:”DES was one of the first transplacental carcinogens discovered in humans, meaning a toxin could cross the placenta and harm the fetus.”

And those daughters still got the extra breast cancer risk as a comealong from moms.

DES daughters also had what many don’t realize impacts fertility via making delivery harder: much higher risk of cervical dysplasia. Dysplasia is usually treated by removal methods that make the cervix not work great for delivery. So the dysplasia doesn’t necessarily impact fertility, but the known treatments overwhelmingly do, and thus it decreases/inhibits fertility if it’s more common in a population.

DES also produces birth defects and (mostly) genital malformations in both sons and daughters. Those defects do directly impact fertility in DES daughters.

Just a few of the ways:
Double the genpop rate of infertility, 3x that for preterm delivery, 10x (yes an order of magnitude) for 2nd trimester loss, 5x ectopic, 3x stillbirth, and increased risk of fibroids and incompetent cervix.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BOYS?
Severe low T baby. Kid you not. Plus way higher MTF transgender tendencies, homosexuality and intersex anomalies. So, also massive fertility impacts.  And perhaps other, more sociocultural impacts.

There are enough DES daughters and sons who did have kids to produce a third generation to begin studying. The effects listed above are more muted, but they are still present in the second generation after in utero exposure.

This was handed out like candy for decades and didn’t show any effects on the women who actually took it except a mildly elevated cancer risk. The nastiest effects fell on the offspring, and to a lesser extent their offspring.

Something to think about when people say there’s probably no fertility effects with this spike protein that ends up travelling all throughout the body. Maybe not for mom. Maybe not for mom.