A TIMID WORD FOR THE STEP-MOTHER.
At a luncheon party of a dozen women which I attended last winter,
this very topic was introduced. Strangely enough, there were present
three women whose mothers had died while the children were still
infants, and whose fathers had married again, and two women who were
themselves step-mothers. Each of the three who could not remember her
own mother agreed that she who took her place had filled it so
conscientiously that the child hardly felt the lack. The two
step-mothers confessed that they loved their husbands' children as
dearly as their own. Said one woman:
"When people speak to me of my step-daughter I have to stop and think
which one of the children I did not bring into the world. She is as
dear to me as my own flesh and blood."
After we had gleaned all the evidence of truth from the chaff to which
we are sometimes treated, a lively member of the company remarked
ruefully:
"I declare, all that I have just heard makes me positively ashamed
that I did not have a step-mother, or that there is no prospect as far
as I can see into the dim future, of my ever becoming one."
There is something to be said on both sides, and we may as well face
the facts without prejudice. No woman, however tender, can really take
an own mother's place. Her step-children may think that she does, and
this is one of the instances where ignorance is such genuine bliss
that it would be cruel folly to enlighten it. It would not be natural
if actual mother-love could be felt by a woman toward any children
save those for whom she has braved the danger of death and the
mightiest pain mortal can know. With this suffering comes a love far
greater than the anguish, a passionate devotion which, we are certain,
must reach beyond the grave itself. That mother who, having young
children, still wishes to die, is an anomaly rarely met with. No
matter how much she may be forced to endure, she still prays to live
for her sons' and daughters' sakes. A poor sufferer once said:
"If I had no child I would beg the good Lord to let me die. But while
my baby lives, I beg Him to spare this life which is too valuable to
Him to be lost."
It is not possible that an outsider "whose own the sheep are not"
should know this heaven-given feeling. Still, every unselfish mother
will acknowledge that were she dying, she would be comforted to know
that her children would find some conscientious, true foster-mother
who would bring them up just as faithfully and tenderly as she knew
how to do.
There is no more forlorn being on this wide earth than a widower with
little children, and with no woman-relative to help him look after
them. Why then this rooted hatred and horror of step-mothers?
You--my step-mother reader--are sadly unfortunate if anyone has been
so cruel to you and your charges as to instil into their minds an
aversion for you with whom they must live for years, perhaps all their
lives. But, perhaps, after all, the case is not so bad as you fear.
You may have a morbid sensitiveness on the subject which makes it look
very dark to you. Even if matters are as you think, if you try
conscientiously to overcome the children's prejudice, and your husband
aids you in your efforts, you are bound to live down their dislike.
Children are tender-hearted and clear-sighted. They will soon judge
for themselves, and the one rule against which they will not rebel is
that of love. The first thing for you to do is to begin with your own
feelings. _Make_ yourself love the little ones. Unless they are
unusually unattractive the task will not be a difficult one. Perhaps
you love them already. If so, half the battle is won. In driving a
restless horse, it is absolutely essential that you should not be at
all nervous yourself. Every horseman will tell you that the animal
knows instinctively the character of the person managing him. If a
thrill of fear touches him who holds the reins, the horse responds to
it as to an electric shock, and becomes almost beside himself with
nervousness. If a firm, steady, yet gentle grasp is on the lines, the
creature obeys in spite of himself. This same principle applies to
children. If you cannot control yourself the children know it, and you
may as well give up all idea of curbing them. The nervous twitching at
the bit and the attempt to govern them by reason of your superior age
or knowledge aggravates the evil. It is a mistake to forget that
children are human beings, with sensitive feelings like our own, only
not as hardened and used to the ways of this unsympathetic world as
we are. Their government must have love at its beginning, continuing
and ending if it would be successful.
You may as well recognize the fact first as last that you are laboring
under a disadvantage in that the hyphenized "step" must precede your
name of mother. This being the case, you have need to add to your love
patience, and to that tact, and to that pity. If the children
exasperate you, do not let them guess it. Keep a rigid guard upon the
harsh tongue. If the demon of Impatience tempts you to utter the quick
"Stop that noise!" or "Do be quiet!"--seal your lips as surely as if
life and death depended upon your silence. Your most severe critics
will not be slow in discovering that you love them too much to "scold"
or be cross. You make tremendous strides towards their love when they
cannot point to a single unjust act that you commit against them.
It may be well in passing to remind you that boys and girls remember
an injustice for many years. They themselves are often fair enough to
acknowledge after the first flush of anger is over, that they merited
a punishment which they have received. As a rule, until they are old
men and women, they do not forget the undeserved blow, the unprovoked
sarcasm. We many times receive patiently, as grown men and women,
reminders that we are doing wrong, but we find it hard to pardon the
person who accuses us falsely.
The most powerful auxiliary love can have in accomplishing its end is
tact. Some people have more than others, but at all times it may be
cultivated. Perhaps the best rule by which to learn it is the old one
of "Put yourself in his place." Reverse the positions as in Anstey's
"Vice Versâ," and imagine yourself a hot-headed, sore-hearted,
prejudiced child, with a step-mother against whom your mind has been
poisoned by those older and presumably wiser than yourself. How would
you receive this or that correction? Acquire the habit of thus putting
the matter before your mind's eye, and you will soon find that tactful
patience becomes second nature.
If you can possibly avoid it, do not correct the children in the
presence of other people, or complain to their father of them. If he
once reproves them with the prefix, "Your mother tells me that you
have done so-and-so," he has laid the foundations of a distrust
difficult to remove. Rather let them domineer over you than try to
manage them by appealing to their father, and, thus making them feel
sure that you are attempting to prejudice him against them. They are
naturally suspicious, and it will take very little to make them
positively certain that you are their natural enemy.
Never fail to remember the great and irreparable loss which these
children have suffered in the death of the only person in the wide
world who could thoroughly understand them. If you had a mother to
help you in your childhood, you will know what they miss, or, if you,
too, were a lonely little being, let the memory of that loneliness
make you lovingly pitiful towards the children who suffer in the same
way. Such pity soon leads to an unconquerable love.
Bear in mind in justification of what may seem like unreasonable
prejudice, that all children have heard many stories, some of which
are true, of the cruelties of step-parents. Doubtless, you in your own
life, have known of more than one second wife who was jealous of her
husband's love for the first wife's children. When women are heartless
they are desperately cruel, and do not hesitate to vent their hatred
upon the little ones whose look, Mrs. Browning tells us,--
"is dread to see,
For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on Deity."
She also reminds those whose consciences are so hardened by
selfishness that they dare be cruel to the mere babies in their care
that--
"The child's sob in the darkness curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath."
We have not to do in this Talk with this type of woman, but with
beings of the mother-sex who would, if they were allowed, make life
brighter for the bereaved little ones.
One way to keep step-children's affection is to talk to them often and
reverently of their own mother. This is due to them and to her who
bare them. Do not allow them to forget her, and guard against the
entrance of any jealous feeling into this sacred duty of keeping her
memory fresh. The children were hers, and in the eternal home will be
hers again. They are only lent to you as a sacred trust. It is not
sacrilegious to believe that their mother knows of your efforts to
make them good men and women, and that she, as their guardian angel,
will not forget to bless her who gives her life to the children who
were once "the sweetest flowers" her own "bosom ever bore."