Jean Amberger Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Christina Delconzo. A Mother’s Role of a Baby Boomer Family. March 20, 2016.

 

• This interview was conducted over the phone via a phone call recording application called “ucall”. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a quiet space with the individuals I live with so I conducted the interview in my car to reduce background noise.
• The interviewee was Jean Amberger, my grandmother. She grew up traveling with her family because of her father’s job and when she married her life consisted of taking care of her eleven children while her husband provided for her family.
• Part of my research was looking up information on the baby boomer period. I had read that the reason behind individuals having such large families were because of the war. I had also looked into a book that talked about how some women felt they did not enjoy being a housewife, they wanted more of a role in society. Though in my interview, my grandmother felt differently.

 

CD: Before we begin I want to verify that you consent to this interview and that you are aware it is being used for a class project.

JA: Yes, I’m aware everything.

CD: Okay. I want to thank you for taking your time out of your day and participating with this interview.

JA: Okay

CD: And lets with you telling me a little bit about yourself. Starting with your name and your birth date.

JA: …My name is Jean Amberger, I was born September 29^th 1933. Uh I’m a wife, mother, grandmother, and soon to be great grandmother. Is that sufficient? [laughs]

CD: [laughs] Yeah. What was life like growing up as a child? What were the gender rolls like?

JA: I had an unusually childhood, only because I was a child of… my father was in the service and we traveled around to different parts of the eastern seaboard. My father was in the coastguard, he retired from the coastguard. So I was born and raised into that. I did not have the normal growing up of being in one particular area, and having friends all my life going to the same schools. I went to different grammar schools, I went to publics schools, I went to catholic schools according to what area I was in at the time. So I did have kind of a different lifestyle.

CD: What were the roles that your mother had that you might have been expected to learn?

JA: Well in our era the women were mostly housewives, and that was, once I got married I was a house wife. And had children and raised them. After got married I never worked, uh, in outside. I did work a lot at home, but not outside… in the field. But as we got older, as I got older, I noticed the generation after me, the wives just started, when their children got to be a certain age they went back to work. I never did.

CD: And you had eleven children?

JA: That’s right, I had seven boys and four girls.

CD: And did that stem from a previous culture of yours? Or was there another reason for having such a large family?
JA: …Probably had a lot to do with the way I was raised, I only had one brother and we moved around so much that I really did not have a close relationship with my aunts or cousins. … I guess part of religion, part of wanting to have a closeness, and having children, it was well kind of just something that happened, but which I am very grateful for now.

CD: So this would have been the baby boomer generation, do you think there was a reason why so many people were having so many children during this time period?

JA: Well I was a child when World War II was declared, and I was at the time, I was living in Georgia, and… uhh as then the war was over. As the service man came back everyone got married and had children. It’s I guess, ya know, it’s like the say when they have a black out, or something, there is so many children born nine months later. But I guess the war had a lot to do with the baby boomers.

CD: Do you think people were trying to increase the nation’s population?

JA: I don’t think… I think that was probably the last thing on their mind

CD: [chuckles] well…. So in today’s society 2-3 children is the norm, describe what is was like raising eleven children.

JA: Well when I look back I don’t think it was such a big deal. I guess at the time it was. We didn’t have, even with the eleven children, I didn’t have all the things that people have no a days with one or two children. I didn’t have pampers, all the diapers had to be washed and hung out on a line. I didn’t get a clothes dryer until after I had my seventh child, so I was doing wash continually and hanging it out on a clothes line. Which probably people in this generation don’t even know what a clothes line is. At the same time I enjoyed what I was doing. Loving my children, and they all seem to get along with no another, even till this day. Which is great for such a large family, ya know, sometimes it’s not normal that people in the same family get along, there is always little problems here and there but so far so good. Everybody is good.

CD: So how did your husband contribute, what was his role like as a husband and father?
JA: Oh my husband contributed an awful lot, maybe not in the housework or the laundry, or things like that. But he was very handy, he could fix anything, if my washer machine broke, he could fix it. He worked hard. He retired, he worked for the same company for 35 years, he brought in a good salary. I never had to worry about finances. I mean, not that I ever overspent or anything like that, I would look for bargains and feeding a family of eleven was expensive.  Not quite as bad as now, but ….things were a little bit more reasonable but of course the salary was not as high as it is today. But uh, no, he contributed everything, he always stood by me and my decisions with raising the children. He helped them with their homework, he was exceptional.

CD: Were their difficulties that you faced while he was at work? Such as taking care of the children or household chores?

JA: Well I guess raising children there’s always an accident here an accident there, ya know somebody falls, some body breaks their arm. They become sick. But he happened to work for an excellent company where if, if and it didn’t happen that often, but if there was an emergency I could call him and he would come home from work and he could help out. But… he did, at the time, work for an exceptional family company that was concerned about, ya know, their employees. I don’t know if it is that way anymore.

CD: So in your opinion, being a stay at home mother was more rewarding than having a job in the workforce?

JA: For me it was, I wouldn’t say it would be for everybody. I mean there was times when I would think about “Oh wouldn’t it be nice to have a job and ya know, have extra money” but with having eleven children by the time the first one was born to the last one was born I felt I had to many too much responsibility. I was getting to be too old to even think of joining/going into the workforce.

CD: So in the 1960’s they had a women’s rights movement, was that something that concerned you as a female as a mother? Or was there too much going on with the children that…  How did you feel?

JA: Well, you probably, if you’re a woman you’re probably not going to like this answer but… [laughs] I actually wasn’t too much, I did not think they were going in the right direction.

CD: What do you mean?

JA: Well first of all the pro choice

CD: Mhmm

JA: That I could never accept, naturally, because I have eleven children. I could just never understand how people would not want… you know if they had a child, if they were pregnant, that they would want to get rid of it. And… sometimes I thought maybe they [the woman] wanted too much, that’s why they were working. They didn’t want to stay home with their children, they were looking for more material things and I just felt that perhaps they were neglecting their children. You know, uh, but that’s my opinion, they were probably all great mothers but uh it wasn’t my style.

CD: So as your children got older were there tasks that you assigned them to make it easier on you? Like household chores, or taking care of the younger siblings, cooking and cleaning?

JA: Uh, Yes. As they got older I could go out. I mean there was 19 years between my oldest one and my youngest one. So when they were older I could go out, I could… I didn’t have to take all the children, you know a lot of children, with me when I went shopping or anything like that. I could leave them home with the older one and go out. So I had a bit more freedom that way but… uh… they helped me out. They did yard work, they helped with the dishes, they did wash, and uh, but mainly I was more concerned with them getting a good education. That was primary, boy or girl, they had to have a good education because I wanted them to do well in the future.

CD: Now with the things that they did around the house did you feel that you assigned them chores according to their gender? Or did everyone contribute equally?

JA: Well I guess possibly the kitchen area was the girls. And the boys would do the yard work and they would help my husband with anything that had to be done in the house, as far as repairs go. Which was a very good learning feature for the boys because most of them are all very handy now, and my husband was handy in repairing things. So they did learn a lot through him. But they also, one of the main things they learned was work ethics, because my husband always went to work, did his job, and enjoyed doing his job. Uh… and that’s one thing my girls and my boys both have very good work ethics.

CD: So my last question I have here is… in what ways do you think it might be harder or easier for individuals to have such a large family, such as your own, in today’s society?

JA: I think it would be impossible. [chuckles] Not that I am taking credit to anything. I don’t think anyone could afford a large family now a days. I mean when I look at the price of milk and its four dollars a gallon, and my children when they were growing up, was two dollars a gallon was noting to go through in one day. And I… just look at the prices and I say to myself I don’t know how people can afford, ya know, what they… what it cost. Uhh… of course they have a lot more benefits too. I mean they will spend a lot of money on pampers, different items, but I just wouldn’t even… it would scare the living day lights out of me if I had eleven kids now a days.

CD: So compared to when you were a child, when you were growing up do you think that gender roles are as prominent as they were back then now?

JA: I think gender roles probably more prominent in my day, women were basically looked upon as house wives. Now a days the, a woman could be the main earner in a family and now they have mister moms that stay home. So everything is quite different now.

CD: Would you have pictured society being like it is today when you were a child?

JA: No. [Chuckles] I would never have thought of it that way.
CD: Well that is all the questions I have so I would like to thank you again for participating in this interview and taking the time out of your day.

JA: It was a pleasure, I hope I helped a little bit, I don’t know [laughs] but I hope I did help.

CD: Alright well thank you very much.

JA: Okay, you’re very welcome Christina

 

• I believe that my interview went well. Unfortunately, looking back, I think my interview was a little bit of “all over the place” with the questions I was asking. In hindsight I think I would have organized my questions a little better to make the interview flow more.