EMPLOYMENTS.
Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
employments. Miserable housewives--not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
manual, or physical.
It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
FATHER.
There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
paragraph. Many a mother has--unconsciously at the time, but with no
less certainty than if she had done it intentionally--given a direction
to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. "My mother's
kiss," on that occasion, said he, "made me a painter." Nor are facts of
the same general character by any means uncommon.
I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
finished--because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company--by telling
stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
will not cease to burn till his death.
But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.
Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
sufficient that she _affect_ a fondness for the employment; her love for
it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.
Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
would.
But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
wretched.
No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.
It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
concerns--and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind--just so long
will human progress towards perfection be retarded.
If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
condemnation.