I thought it was interesting too how her diary did cover all points of her life, not just about her being a good wife or a good mother or a good midwife or what have you.  That was one aspect of her diary that stood out from the diaries we have looked at previously.  The diaries from the other periods seemed more concerned with making the writer look like a good Christian or the proper woman of the time, like she wrote it because she knew that it would be read some day and that she wanted to make sure her decendants knew what a wonderful person she was.  While Martha Ballard may have had the same intention it also seems as though she wanted to keep the record more for herself and her children then to show how good she was. --Mary P.

I thought it was interesting too how her diary did cover all points of her life, not just about her being a good wife or a good mother or a good midwife or what have you.  That was one aspect of her diary that stood out from the diaries we have looked at previously.  The diaries from the other periods seemed more concerned with making the writer look like a good Christian or the proper woman of the time, like she wrote it because she knew that it would be read some day and that she wanted to make sure her decendants knew what a wonderful person she was.  While Martha Ballard may have had the same intention it also seems as though she wanted to keep the record more for herself and her children then to show how good she was. --Mary P.