woman of forty-five or fifty. She could easily occupy herself in one
of several trades; but, being in possession of a house and a tiny
income, she "does not have to work." She prefers to live in that
house, on that income, and have her daughter live with her. The
daughter prefers to go to New York, and study music or art or
dressmaking, whatever she is fit for. But here is her dear mother
claiming her presence at home as a duty; and she gives it. She does
her duty, living there with her mother in the capacity of--of what? In
no capacity at all. Fancy a young man living at home in the capacity
of a "son," with no better occupation than dusting the parlour and
arranging flowers! In course of time the mother dies. The daughter has
lost her position as "a daughter," and has no other place in life.
She has never been allowed to form part of the living organism of
society, and remains a withered offshoot, weak and fruitless.
These cases are common enough. But consider from another point of view
the serene presumption of the elder woman. Because she had done--so
far--her duty by the child that was, she now claims a continuous hold
on the grown woman and a return for her services.
In still earlier days this claim was made even more strenuously. The
child awe-fully addressed the father as "author of my being," and was
supposed to "owe" him everything. The child does not owe the parent.
Parental duty is not a loan. It is the never-ending gift of
nature,--an unbroken, outpouring river of love and labour from the
earliest beginnings of life. The child, while a child, has also some
duty to the parent; but even there it is reflex, and based in last
analysis on the child's advantage.
Meanwhile it is a poor parent who cannot win the affection and command
the respect of the young creature growing up so near, so that a
beautiful relation shall be established between them for the rest of
life. This love and honest admiration, this affectionate friendliness,
and all the ties of long association would naturally prompt the child
to desire the society of the parent, and, of course, to provide for
illness and old age; but that is a very different position from the
one taken by an able-bodied, middle-aged parent demanding the
surrender of a young life.
Parentage is not a profession with a sort of mutual insurance return
to it. The claim that humanity is born saddled with this retroactive
obligation requires more convincing proof than has yet been offered.
An obligation we all have, young and old,--and to this the child
should be trained,--the vast and endless service of humanity, to which
our lives are pledged without exception. Seeing the parent devout in
this honourable discharge of duty,--realising that his own training is
with a view to that greater service when he is grown,--the child would
go onward in life with the parent, not backward to him.
But we have not yet forgotten the habits and traditions of the
patriarchate. We demand from the young respect because we are older,
not because we deserve it. Respect is a thing which is extorted
willy-nilly by those who deserve it, and which cannot be given at
will. If a parent loses his temper and talks foolishly, how can a
child respect this weakness? To demand respectful treatment shows one
cannot command it; and, if it is not commanded, it cannot be had. Any
false assumption is a block to progress. So long as the aged expect to
be looked up to on account of the length of time in which they have
not died, so long will they ignore those habits of life which should
insure reverence and love at any age.
People ought to be living with wise forethought and circumspection, in
order that they may be respected when old,--not carelessly lulled with
the comforting belief that, no matter how foolish they are, age will
bring dignity.
So, too, if parents did not so fatuously demand respect merely because
they are parents, but would see to it that they deserve and win
respect by such visible power and wisdom as the child must bow to, we
might look for a much quicker advance in these desirable qualities.
The power of learning things does not cease at maturity. Many a great
mind has gone on to extreme old age, open, eager, steadily adding to
its store of light and power. Such keep the freshness and the modesty
of youth. Far more numerous are the little minds which imagine that
years are equivalent to wisdom, and, because they are grown up,
decline to learn further. Yet these, far more than the wise men, sit
back complacent on their age, and talk with finality of "my
experience"!
Experience is not merely keeping alive. Experience involves things
happening and things done. Many a young man of to-day has done more
and felt more than a peaceful, stationary nonagenarian of yesterday's
rural life. That very brashness and self-assumption of hot youth,
which brings so complacent and superior a smile to the cheek of age,
would not be so prominent but for previous suppression and
contemptuous treatment. A lofty and supercilious age makes a rash and
incautious youth; but youth, trained to early freedom and its rich and
instructive punishments, would grow to an agreeable age, modest with
much wisdom, tender and considerate with long power.
IX.
THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH.
Since we have so carefully and thoroughly beaten back the new
brain-growth which should distinguish each successive generation, and
fostered in every way the primitive mental habits of our forefathers,
the natural consequence is a prolonged survival of very early
tendencies. Outside, in the necessary contact and freedom of the
world's life, crude ideas must change, and either become suited to the
times or lost entirely. But in the privacy of the home, under the
conditions of family life and the dominant influence of feminine
conservatism, we find a group of carefully cherished rudiments which
never could have survived without such isolation.
Among primitive races the stranger is an object of legitimate
derision. The differences in his speech and manner are held as visible
inferiorities, and his attempts to assimilate are greeted with
unchecked merriment. This attitude of mind is still common in
children, who are passing through the same stage of culture
individually. Among intelligent and well-bred grown people such an
attitude of mind is rightly despised. To them the stranger is entitled
to respectful consideration because he is a stranger; and nothing
could be ruder, in the estimation of such persons, than to laugh at
the stranger's efforts to learn our language and manners.
How great is the difference between this common good breeding in the
world at large and the barbaric crudity of our behaviour at home to
that most sacred stranger, the child! He comes to us absolutely
ignorant of our methods of living, be they wise or unwise; and he must
needs learn every step of his way in the paths we have prepared for
him. Unfortunately, we have prepared very little. A few physical
conveniences, perhaps, in the way of high chairs and cradles, or
nursing-bottles to supplement maternal deficiency; but in psychic
conveniences--in any better recognition of the childish attitude of
mind and its natural difficulties--we make small progress.
Calm, wondering, unafraid, the stranger enters the family circle. He
has no perspective, no gradations of feeling in regard to the
performances he finds going on about him. He has neither shame for the
truths of real life nor respect for the falsehoods of artificial life.
In soberness and eager interest he begins the mysterious game of
living.
Now what is the attitude of the family toward this new-comer? How does
the intelligent adult treat the stranger within his gates? He treats
him with frequent ridicule and general gross disrespect. Not
"unkindly," perhaps,--that is, not with anger and blows or undue
deprivations,--but as if being a child was a sort of joke. A healthy
child is merry with the free good spirits of a spring-tide lamb; but
that pure mirth has nothing in common with ridicule. Who of us has not
seen a clear-eyed child struck dumb and crimson by the rude laughter
of his elders over some act which had no element of humour except that
it was new to him? We put grandpa's hat on the downy head of the baby,
and roar with laughter at his appearance. Do we put baby's cap on
grandma, and then make fun of the old lady's looks? Why should we jeer
at a baby more than at an old person? Why are we so lacking in the
respect due to youth?
Every child has to learn the language he is born to. It is certain
that he will make mistakes in the process, especially as he is not
taught it by any wise system, but blunders into what usage he can
grasp from day to day.
Now, if an adult foreigner were learning our language, and we greeted
his efforts with yells of laughter, we should think ourselves grossly
rude. And what should we think of ourselves if we further misled him
by setting absurd words and phrases before him, encouraging him to
further blunders, that we might laugh the more; and then, if we had
visitors, inciting him to make these blunders over again to entertain
the company? Yet this is common household sport, so long as there is a
little child to act as zany for the amusement of his elders. The
errors of a child are not legitimate grounds of humour, even to those
coarse enough to laugh at them, any more than a toddling baby's falls
have the same elements of the incongruous as the overthrow of a stout
old gentleman who sits down astonished in the snow.
A baby has to fall. It is natural, and not funny. So does the young
child have to make mistakes as he learns any or all of the crowding
tasks before him; but these are not fair grounds for ridicule.
I was walking in a friend's garden, and met for the first time the
daughter of the house, a tall, beautiful girl of nineteen or twenty.
Her aunt, who was with me, cried out to her in an affected tone, "Come
and meet the lady, Janey!"
The young girl, who was evidently unpleasantly impressed, looked
annoyed, and turned aside in some confusion, speaking softly to her
teacher who was with her. Then the aunt, who was a very muscular
woman, seized the young lady by her shoulders, lifted her off the
ground, and thrust her blushing, struggling, and protesting into my
arms--by way of introduction! Naturally enough, the girl was overcome
with mortification, and conceived a violent dislike for me. (This
story is exactly true, except that the daughter of the house was aged
two and a half.)
Now why,--in the name of reason, courtesy, education, justice, any
lofty and noble consideration,--why should Two-and-a-half be thus
insulted? What is the point of view of the insulter? How does she
justify her brutal behaviour? Is it on the obvious ground of physical
superiority in age and strength? It cannot be that, for we do not
gratuitously outrage the feelings of all persons younger and smaller
than ourselves. A stalwart six-foot septuagenarian does not thus
comport himself toward a small gentleman of thirty or forty. It cannot
be relationship; for such conduct does not obtain among adults, be
they never so closely allied. It has no basis except that the victim
is a child, and the child has no personal rights which we feel bound
to respect.
A baby, when "good," is considered as a first-rate plaything,--a toy
to play with or to play on or to set going like a machine-top, that we
may laugh at it. There is a legitimate frolicking with small
children, as the cat plays with her kittens; but that is not in the
least inconsistent with respect. Grown people can play together and
laugh together without jeering at each other. So we might laugh with
our children, even more than we do, and yet never laugh at them. The
pathetic side of it is that children are even more sensitive to
ridicule than grown people. They have no philosophy to fall back upon;
and,--here is the hideously unjust side,--if they lose their tempers,
being yet unlearned in self-restraint,--if they try to turn the tables
on their tormentors, then the wise "grown-up" promptly punishes them
for "disrespect." They must respect their elders even in this pitiful
attitude; but who is to demand the respect due to youth?
There is a deal of complaint among parents over the "impertinence" of
children. "How dare you speak to me like that!" cries outraged
authority. Yet "that" was only the expression used just before by the
parent to the child.
"Hold your tongue!" says the mother. "Hold yours!" answers the child,
and is promptly whipped for impertinence. "I'll teach you to answer me
like that!" says angry mamma. And she does.
In the baby's first attempt to speak we amused ourselves mightily over
his innocent handling of rude phrases,--overheard by chance or even
taught him, that we might make merry over the guileless little mouth,
uttering at our behest the words it did not understand. Then, a year
or so older, when he says the same things, he is laboriously and
painfully taught that what is proper for a parent to say to a child is
not proper for a child to say to a parent. "Why?" puzzles the child.
We can give no answer, except our large assumption that there is no
respect due to youth.
Ask any conscientious mother or father why the new human being, fresh
from God as they profess to believe, not yet tainted by sin or
weakened by folly and mistake, serene in its mighty innocence and
serious beyond measure, as its deep eyes look solemnly into life,--why
this wonderful kind of humanity is to be treated like a court fool.
What can the parent say?
From the deeper biological standpoint, seeing the foremost wave of
advancing humanity in each new generation, there is still less excuse
for such contemptuous treatment. In the child is lodged the piled up
progress of the centuries, and, as he shall live, is that progress
hastened or retarded. Quite outside of the natural affection of the
parent for the offspring stands this deep, human reverence for the
latest and best specimen of its kind. Every child should represent a
higher step in racial growth than its parents, and every parent should
reverently recognise this. For a time the parent has the advantage. He
has knowledge, skill, and power; and we feel that in the order of
nature he is set to minister to the younger generation till it shall
supplant him. To develope such a noble feeling has taken a long time,
and many steps upward through those cruder sentiments which led toward
it. Yet it is the rational, conscious feeling into which the human
being translates the whole marvellous law of parental love.
To the animal this great force expresses itself merely in instinct;
but, as such, it is accepted and fulfilled, and the good of the young
subserved unquestioningly. In low grades of human life we have still
this animal parental instinct largely predominating, coloured more or
less with some prevision of the real glory of the work in hand. Yet so
selfish is human parentage that in earlier times children have been
sold as slaves in the interests of parents, have been and still are
set to work prematurely; and in certain races the father looks forward
to having a son for various religious benefits accruing to him, the
father.
Sentiments like these are not conducive to respect for youth. The
mother is not generally selfish, in this sense. Her error is in
viewing the child too personally, depending too much on "instinct,"
and giving very little thought to the matter. She loves much and
serves endlessly, but reasons little. The child is pre-eminently "her"
child, and is treated as such. Intense affection she gives, and such
forms of discipline and cultivation as are within her range,
unflagging care and labour also; but "respect" for the bewitching
bundle of cambric she has so elaborately decorated does not occur to
her.
Note the behaviour of a group of admiring women around a baby on
exhibition. Its clothes are prominent, of course, in their admiration;
and its toes, fingers, and dimples generally. They kiss it and cuddle
it and play with it, and the proud mamma is pleased. When the
exhibitee is older and more conscious, it dislikes these scenes
intensely. Being "dressed up" and passed around for the observation
and remark of the grown-up visitors is an ordeal we can all remember.
Why cannot a grown person advance to make the acquaintance of a child
with the same good manners used in meeting an adult? Frankness,
naturalness, and respect, these are all the child wants. And precisely
these he is denied. We put on an assumed interest--a sort of stage
manner--in accosting the young, and for all our pretence pay no regard
to their opinions or confidence, when given. Really well-intentioned
persons, parents or otherwise, will repeat before strangers some
personal opinion, just softly whispered in their ears, with a pair of
little arms holding fast to keep the secret close; dragging it out
remorselessly before the persons implicated, while the betrayed child
squirms in wretchedness and anger.
To do this to a grown-up friend would warrant an angry dropping of
acquaintance. Such traitorous rudeness would not be tolerated by man
or woman. But the child,--the child must pocket every insult, as
belonging to a class beneath respect.
Is it not time that we summoned our wits from their
wool-gathering,--however financially profitable the wool may be,--and
gave a little honest thought to the status of childhood? Childhood is
not a pathological condition, nor a term of penal servitude, nor a
practical joke. A child is a human creature, and entitled to be
treated as such. A human body three feet long is deserving of as much
respect as a human body six feet long. Yet the bodies of children are
handled with the grossest familiarity. We pluck and pull and push
them, tweak their hair and ears, pat them on the head, chuck them
under the chin, kiss them, and hold them on our laps, entirely
regardless of their personal preferences. Why should we take liberties
with the person of a child other than those suitable to an intimate
friendship at any age?
"Because children don't care," some one will answer. But children do
care. They care enormously. They dislike certain persons always
because of disagreeable physical contact in childhood. They wriggle
down clumsily, all their clothes rubbed the wrong way, with tumbled
hair and flushed, sulky faces from the warm "lap" of some large woman
or bony, woolly-clothed man, who was holding them with one hand and
variously assaulting them with the other, and rush off in helpless
rage. No doubt they "get used to it," as do eels to skinning; but in
this process of accustoming childhood to brutal discourtesy we lose
much of the finest, most delicate development of human nature. There
is no charge of cruelty, unkindness, or neglect involved in this.
Discourtesy to children is practised by the most loving and devoted
parents, the most amiable of relatives and visitors. Neither is it a
question of knowledge on the part of the elder. These rudenesses are
practised by persons of exquisite manners, among their equals. It is
simply a case of survival of an undeveloped field of human nature,--a
dark, uncultivated, neglected spot where we have failed to grow. The
same forces which have so far civilised us will work farther when we
give them room. We have but to open our minds and widen our sphere of
action to become civilised in these domestic relations. It is the
citizenship--the humanness--of the child we need to recognise, not
merely its relative accomplishments compared to ourselves. Also the
tendencies and restraint born of power and freedom should teach us to
respect the child precisely because of its helplessness. The principle
that urges even the bullying school-boy to "take a fellow of his own
size," and which forbids torturing a captive, killing an unarmed man,
or insulting an inferior, ought to put more nobility into our conduct
in relation to the child. As so much weaker, strength should respect
him; and, as one bound to supersede us, wisdom should recognise his
power.
X.
TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION.
The child comes to the table. He looks a little weary, knowing the
task before him.
"Now what will you have?" asks his fond mamma. "What would you like,
dear?"
The child gazes at the dishes there present, and is somewhat attracted
toward one or more of them; but his brain thrusts upon him images of
other viands, and memories of triumph in securing some vaguely
remembered delicacy. He wavers in his mind, and wiggles his knife
uncertainly. "I guess--I'll have"--Mamma is all attention. "Have some
of this nice potato!" she urges. He had inclined toward the potato
previously, but rebels at its being urged upon him. Also the cooing
adjective affronts him. He has heard things called nice before,
usually when he did not want them.
"No, I don't want any potato," he says. "I want--I'll have some sweet
potato!"
Unhappily there is no sweet potato, and the good mamma smilingly
excuses the lack. "We will have some to-morrow," she promises; and, to
distract him from thought of the impossible, "Won't you have a chop?"
"No--yes--I'll have one chop. On this plate, not on that plate. I
won't have it on that plate!"
"But this plate is warm, dear."
"I want it on my own plate!"
"Very well. Will you have some gravy?"
"Yes, I guess so. Not on the potato! Don't put it on the potato! I
won't eat it if you put it on the potato!"
In time he eats, though not with eagerness. In his young mind is a
vague sense of annoyance and discomfort, as if he were in some way
defrauded of his dinner. The present dinner, rather gloomily going
down, is contrasted with other possible dinners, not now to be
attained. What he has suffers by comparison with all the things he has
not, and a dim memory of previous disappointments oppresses him.
"He never did eat well," says his mother. "We have hard work to find
what he will eat." There may be some digestive disturbance, but there
is a quite needless psychological disturbance added. Choice is a
wearing thing, even to the trained scanner of _menus_.
To select a meal exactly to one's taste, and not be haunted by the
unchosen dishes, means the prompt and skilful exercise of a widely
cultivated taste. Most of us gladly prefer to have some experienced
cook and caterer set a good meal before us. A pleased anticipation at
a well-known dinner table is a more agreeable frame of mind than that
of one who must needs select, spurred by a tall darkey with a pencil.
A child has not a cultivated taste nor the calmness of experience. A
choice, even from objects before him, is uncertain enough. He is apt
to speedily regret and wish to change. To be called upon to order a
meal is a real tax upon him. While he exerts himself in this
direction, any proposition is likely to be resented; and, to one who
is on tiptoe in effort to decide, an insinuating suggestion from
without is extremely irritating.
This method of consulting a child's preferences before he has them,
introducing alternatives not present and then harassing the wavering
young mind with persuasive propositions, rapidly developes a halting,
fretful, back-stitch sort of temper, always wishing it had done the
other thing.
The old-fashioned method was to compel a child to eat "what was set
before him," all of it, quite regardless of his personal taste or
constitutional limitations. Nothing but palpable nausea convinced
these obdurate parents of earlier generations that there were some
things the little victim could not eat. This was a foolish and cruel
method. Children differ widely in digestive power and preference, and
their tastes are marked and sensitive. Eating what he does not like is
far more painful to a child than to an adult. But his tastes and
limitations can be discovered without concentrating his own attention
on them. It is bad to treat a child's tastes with less consideration
than those of older human beings; but there is no reason why they
should be treated with more. The simple lesson can be taught of
eating what he likes and leaving what he dislikes without vociferous
proclamation of these preferences; and, if he really thinks of
something else he would like to have for dinner, teach him to ask for
it for another time. He can readily understand that cooking takes
time, and extra dishes cannot be served at a moment's notice.