Bradstreet's In Reference To Her Children

Puritan women spent a great deal of their adult lives pregnant. The life expectancy of women was lower than it was for men (62 for women vs. 69 for men), mostly due to the fact that there was a high rate of death during childbirth. According to the Digital History Project, “during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all births ended in the mother's death as a result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convulsions. Since the typical mother gave birth to between five and eight children, her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as 1 in 8.”
Bradstreet gave birth to eight children, and it is likely that she feared her own death during each of her deliveries. “Before the
She appears to be older when she writes this poem; five of her children have left the nest while three remain. Bradstreet begins by describing explaining how her oldest son "took his flight" and left her (Bradstreet 228). She sends out her "chirps" (letters) and hopes that her son will return to the nest one day. Bradstreet's daughter also moved away with her mate to the South; she and her husband return north occasionally. Another daughter who has a pure white complexion, also married a "loving and true" man and moved away. Bradstreet's fourth child went off to the academy to "chat among the learned drew" and fulfill his ambition (Bradstreet 228). The fifth child has just left the nest. The last three children are younger and she writes they "still with me nest” (Bradstreet 228). Bradstreet is quite aware that the time will eventually come when they will depart as well. Bradstreet goes on to talk about her fears for her children; she uses metaphors such as hoping they will not get caught in a net, hit with a stone, or be caught by a hawk to express concerns about their futures. She talks about how she loved them enough to give them wings to fly. At this time in history, it was probably rare that one mother would have all 8 of her children live to adulthood in light of disease, Indian attacks and death in childbirth. Bradstreet doesn’t mention ever losing a child during childbirth or childhood; she was very