When the child is born--again it is only its welfare which should be
thought of by the mother, and not what custom or family opinion would
enforce. To me it seems that no mother ought to undertake any of the
so-called duties of a mother that she is incapable of performing to
the advantage of the child, who would be better cared for by employing
highly trained service. She should only force herself to do her best
in uncongenial tasks if circumstances make it impossible for her to
obtain a better nurse or teacher for her infant than she herself could
be. She must constantly keep _the end_ in view, so as to stamp out
prejudice and out-of-date methods; especially she should guard against
making the child suffer for her own fads and experiments. I believe I
shall better illustrate what I mean by "keeping the end in view" if I
give a few concrete examples, instead of trying to explain in the
abstract.
Here is one example.
There were two women of my acquaintance, one of whom had an exquisitely
obedient, perfectly brought-up little girl of five who was her
constant thought, and a baby of two months. This mother could afford
an excellent nurse, and left all the physical care of the infant to
her, concentrating her intelligence upon wise general supervision, and
upon the training of the little girl whose dawning character was her
study. The other mother had two very ill-behaved, disobedient children
of five and seven, and a baby of three months. She spent her time
washing and dressing the infant, fussing over it and caressing it from
morning to night, and interfering with the paid nurse, who well knew
her duties. She was also quite indifferent to her appearance, and
wearied her husband to death with her over-domesticity. But she felt
herself to be a perfect and affectionate wife and mother, and strongly
censured the other woman when she admitted that she had never washed
or dressed her baby, and was even rather nervous when she held it in
case she should hurt its tender neck and head. But the proof that the
first woman was a true and good guardian of God's gift to her was in
the finely trained little girl, and the proof of the second woman's
undevelopment from the animal stage was in her concentrated and, in
the circumstances, unnecessary preoccupation with the infant, to the
entire neglect of the character training of the elder children. Had
they both been so poor that actual physical care of the infants
devolved solely upon each mother, the first would have used all her
intelligence to discover the sensible and common-sense way to carry
out her duties, and the second would have continued using any obsolete
method she had been accustomed to, while she lavished silly fuss and
attention upon the baby.