{"id":339066,"date":"2024-10-13T20:51:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T16:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epress.am\/?p=339066"},"modified":"2024-11-28T22:07:47","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T18:07:47","slug":"my-mom-too-had-four-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2024\/10\/13\/my-mom-too-had-four-children.html","title":{"rendered":"My Mom, Too, Had Four Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Birth rates were incentivized in Karabakh: Multi-child families were offered free housing, and mothers received financial allowances after each childbirth, as well as additional aid support during breastfeeding. They also received a monthly family allowance based on the number of children. Government and military employees were paid higher salaries than their counterparts in Armenia, making even low-income families less hesitant to have many children. Women benefiting from these social welfare programs were often celebrated as &#8220;heroine-mothers\u201d. However, with displacement and sudden poverty, these families now face a drastically different reality. No longer viewed as &#8220;heroine-mothers,&#8221; they are now stigmatized and blamed for their circumstances. Not only strangers, but also social workers at national and community levels reprimand them, asking, \u201cWhy did you have so many children if you are poor?\u201d The support and empathy that once existed have been replaced by judgment and harsh moralizing.<\/p>\n<p>This is the second episode of the &#8216;After Karabakh\u2019 series, where Epress talks with Lira, Liana, Armine and Narine.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"\u0540\u0561\u0575\u0561\u057d\u057f\u0561\u0576\u0578\u0582\u0574 \u0565\u057d \u056b\u0576\u0571 \u0562\u0561\u0566\u0574\u0561\u0566\u0561\u057e\u0561\u056f \u0574\u0561\u0575\u0580 \u0579\u0565\u0574 \u0566\u0563\u0578\u0582\u0574\" width=\"618\" height=\"348\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BGIR5vgF0Ew?start=514&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Quotes from interviews in the video:<\/p>\n<p>I thought kids are a gift from God.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t feel like I am mother of many children in Armenia<\/p>\n<p>Armine,\u00a0 please don&#8217;t tell me you are pregnant again.<\/p>\n<p>My mom, too, had four children<\/p>\n<p>Locals in Armenia tell us, you do barbecues too often.<\/p>\n<p>I take a couple of things from the store to pay for later. When I go to pay off the debt, I pick up other things. I want to make things right before school starts.<\/p>\n<p>My husband would get 300K\u00a0 monthly, We would get 130K\u00a0 allowance, too.<\/p>\n<p>Salaries were high there (in Karabakh).<\/p>\n<p>There was always a lot of money there.. It\u2019s just there is no money here.<\/p>\n<p>Excuse me, does your family get 22 square meters of space per person?<\/p>\n<p>The cabins\u00a0 were a means to make high fortunes. Just like it is here.<\/p>\n<p>Thank God, this person gave us his house to live in.<\/p>\n<p>Houses are not to be found. Nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t get why\u00a0 a house like this would cost 100K.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t want my children to feel afraid every day again.<\/p>\n<p>If they give us a house, it\u2019ll be good. If they don\u2019t, we will survive somehow anyway.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want them to feel shy in front of their peers.<br \/>\nThe\u00a0 youngest two children were on the verge of life and death. Two cesareans in a year.<\/p>\n<p>Did you marry loving?<\/p>\n<p>Respect grows into understanding each other.\u00a0 Love\u00a0 emerges with time, I guess.<\/p>\n<p>As a matter of fact, I didn&#8217;t understand what the word love is.<\/p>\n<p>He said, whether she wants it or not, she will be mine. Now we have 5 children. I am 38.<\/p>\n<p>What do you do with so many manicurists?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe they get huffed, but they don&#8217;t tell me.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; Did you marry loving? &#8211; Respect grows into understanding each other.\u00a0 Love\u00a0 emerges with time, I guess. As a matter of fact, I didn&#8217;t understand what the word love is.\u00a0<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,66037,66056,65979,65974],"tags":[91280,91279,91278,91277],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}