As far as the necessities for it go in the animal world, nearly all
animals have a very strong sense of the responsibility of
motherhood--unless they have become over-civilised, or live under
unnatural circumstances. A striking example of the consequences of the
latter state of being is shown by "Barbara," that thrillingly
attractive Polar bear in the Zoo, whose twelfth and thirteenth infants
were only the other day condemned to follow their brothers and sisters
to an early grave through their parents'--and especially their
mother's--gross stupidity about their bringing-up and welfare. And we
who are human animals, given by God conscious souls, ought to realise
the fact that civilisation and pampered environment have enormously
blunted our natural instincts in this respect, just as they have
Barbara's, and so we should try to restore the loss by consciously
cultivating our understanding of the subject and deliberately
realising the tremendous responsibilities we incur by bringing
children into the world. When we think about the matter quietly, the
magnitude of it is almost overwhelming, and yet there are hundreds and
thousands of women who never give it a serious thought! They have some
vague idea that to have children is the inevitable result of
matrimony, and that if they pay others to feed and clothe the little
creatures, and give them some instruction in the way that they should
go, their own part of the affair is finished. That, until a child is
grown to an age to judge for itself, the parents will be held
responsible for their stewardship of its body and soul at the great
tribunal of God does not strike them, and it is only perhaps when the
boomerang of their neglect has returned to them and blasted them with
calamity that they become conscious of their past negligence.
In this article I do not propose to touch upon the father's side of
the question, important as it is, but shall confine myself to the
mother's, because this has always been one of my deep preoccupations
to think out the meaning of it all, and how best to fulfil the trust.
Obviously the sole aim of true motherhood is the moral and physical
welfare of the child, and to accomplish this end we should understand
that it is quite impossible to lay down any set rule, or go by any
recognised and unchangeable method. For in one age certain precepts
are taught which are obsolete in the next, because science and the
improvement of mechanical aids to well-being advance with such giant
strides. But if we keep _the end_ in view it is simple enough to see
that common sense and discrimination, unclouded by custom or sentiment
or superstition, can accomplish miracles. The circumstances of the
particular case must always govern the method to be used in order to
obtain the same given end, no matter what the station in life of the
parents. Thus every mother, from the humblest to the highest, ought to
think out how she can best procure her child moral and physical
welfare _according to her means_.
In the lives of the very poor the only thing to be done for the
betterment of the understanding of the responsibility of motherhood
seems to be to teach the simplest rules of hygiene which animals know
by instinct, and after that for the State to take care of the children
as much as possible. For this very strange fact is in operation,
namely, that while Nature leaves an insatiable desire to create life,
she allows civilisation to rob human beings of instinctive knowledge
of how to preserve it in its earliest stages, and that the human
mother is of all creation the only one entirely at the mercy of
imparted knowledge as regards the proper treatment of her offspring.
Into the conception of the duties of motherhood among the very poor we
cannot go in this short paper--the subject is too vast--so we must
confine ourselves to discussing those of a higher class where, having
the means to do well, the responsibilities are far greater. I want, if
I can, to open a window, as it were, upon the outlook of the general
responsibility of motherhood and let each class apply what it gathers
of the meaning, if it wishes, to its own circumstances.
It is the aim and end of a thing which is of sole importance; in this
case the aim and end being the happiness and welfare of the child. And
that is the point which I want to harp upon, the necessity of keeping
the goal in view and of not wandering off into side issues. It was for
the sake of the end, namely, obtaining happiness, that I tried to show
in my articles upon marriage how common sense might secure this
desired state. And it was to _the end_ of what might be best for
England that I pleaded for the necessity of using fair judgment over
the question of facilitating or restricting divorce. And it is now to
_the end_ of helping the coming race to be fine and true that I want
to talk about the responsibility of motherhood.
Let us take the subject from the very beginning.