It would seem to me that a mother's first obligation is to enforce
discipline, and to teach self-control from the earliest infancy with
the fondest loving care, and to transmit that sense of responsibility
for noble citizenship into her children which should have been her own
guiding star.
But, again, to do so she must not employ obsolete methods without
taking into account the spirit of the age which has aroused a sense of
personal liberty in the youngest child, and makes it refuse to accept
rules and regulations on trust. It must be convinced that they are for
its good, or it will only bow to them by fear, learn to deceive, and
remain rebellious and determined at the first opportunity to throw off
the yoke and go its own way. I will give a concrete case of what I
mean upon this point, to show how even a good woman can misunderstand
the real meaning of the responsibility of motherhood, and by her
method of upbringing can allow misfortune to fall upon her young
family.
Here is a lady of the highest rank, who comes of a steady and worthy
stock, and who has been brought up herself strictly and well. She
marries a man of great position, but with rather wild blood in his
veins. She has no modern ideas of only desiring a small family; she
wishes to and intends to do her duty to her state, and is by no means
set upon personal amusement.
As the years go on she becomes the mother of four boys and two girls.
She engages the best nurses for them, and, later on, the best
governesses and tutors. The children are taught their catechism on
Sundays and are drilled as those of their class into having good
outward manners and behaviour. They are given orders without
explanations, which they are expected to obey unquestioningly, and
they are duly punished when they are disobedient. They see their
parents at stated hours each day, and are seemingly a well-regulated
and satisfactory young brood.
The good woman and great lady's time is naturally much occupied with
social duties, and duties to her husband's tenants, and to various
charities and good works in which she is interested. She fulfils all
these admirably, and is generally held in affection and respect. All
the children have been treated exactly the same by her, although she
knows that her husband has a dishonourable, gambling, scapegrace
brother who has had to be sent to Australia, and that her husband
himself has had tastes, the reverse of orthodox where his emotions
were concerned, though happily he has not jeopardised the family
fortunes as his brother would have done had he been head. All the
children have been so well brought up and instructed in the tenets of
the Church that she feels quite placid and sure that she has done all
that could be expected of her, and is horribly surprised and
distressed when disasters presently occur. She looks upon them as the
will of God and fate, but feels in no way to blame personally.