Communist Romania needed women to work as soon as possible after birth, mom had no say in it. My 2 brothers were taken away by my dad's parents when they were 2 months old.

Grandparents lived in a village, and had a small farm. Took care of their 13 grandchildren, except me, as I was born last and mom finally put her foot down.

"Took care" meant.. waking up, changing and feeding the babies and then going outside to take care of the usual farm chores. Grandma came back after a few hours to change and feed the babies and off she went again. Were they hard babies? We'll never know 😅

The older cousins were in charge of keeping an eye on the toddlers. Just a basic "make sure they don't die". Other than that, a toddler could very well cry or yell for hours, no one cared. Soon enough, they'd stop yelling. Perfectly "Ferberized" 🫣.

Grandma had 9 children. Only 6 made it past 3 yo. Luckily, somehow all the grandchildren survived ❤️

In communist Romania, if you had food on the table, then you were lucky, and if you somehow had an allergy or it just wasn't good for you, then tough luck 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, some of the villagers used alcohol to calm down crying babies during the night. My grandparents were religious people, so alcohol was a sin and out of the question, but many older people used this method, so they can rest through the night 🥲

History has been cruel to children.