[autumnraine]

Her mom would put newborns in cotton sacks and pull them along as she picked cotton. The older kids would stay in front, so mom could keep a close eye on them. "We would pick the cotton and pile it up in front of her, and she'd come along and pick it up and put it in her sack," McIntosh says

My grandmother did this with my aunts and uncles too. Then to my mother as my aunts and uncles picked cotton along with them. Then they would go home and tend to the garden that fed them.

[Lorianne]

I’ve seen women all over the world work in the fields like this, with children in tow.

This is what makes me angry when people suggest that a “working mother” is a relatively new thing. It’s not, it’s as old as the hills.

The vast majority of women throughout the ages have worked to support their families, in good times and bad.

And yes, the mother in the photo is beautiful. She’s beautiful because she’s genuine ... she’s the real deal.

[B-Chan]

My mother is the youngest of twelve children of a family of Mississippi sharecroppers. She had this same experience as a child in the 1940s.