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I Was The First In My Family
Born in a hospital
Every child on both sides of my family, until me, was born at home. But when my Mom was pregnant with me, my father insisted she be taken to a hospital. He wanted the safest possible experience for his wife and new child. He had come to the United States for graduate school before going back home to India where he got married and where I was born.
He believed in the marvels of modern science and the wonders of technological advancement.
My mother became the first woman in her family to have a child in an Indian hospital and then, when she had my brother, she had one in an American hospital.
I should ask her how the experiences compared.
I have seen a lot of technical changes in my own life — computers, cell phones, Amazon… StarLink… somehow, none of it hits my core like the fact that I was the first in my family not born at home. Because that seems to set the divide more firmly for me than anything else. The distinction between two eras in history. The Industrial Age vs. the Pre-Industrial one.
A demarcation line between high mortality rates for mothers and children vs. life-saving devices that increased survival rates. Modern hygiene, modern medicine, modern white gowns and pain killers.
