a paid employee is guilty of a vital neglect. If later on, it should
happen that the child proves lacking in affection, sympathy,
consideration for others, and fails to fulfill the mother's fond
aspirations, in that respect, she has herself to blame, first of all.
If this simple truth could be brought home to every modern mother, it
might prove very helpful to the next generation.
It is not difficult to suggest how the affections find nourishment and
development. And remember we are not yet considering the moral feelings,
but only the heart.
Love begets love; love is largely mutual; love thrives on the
companionship of the loved ones.
The tenderness, sympathy, devotion of a mother, very surely and quickly
open out the heart feelings of her child and meet with warm response.
The more constant the companionship, the more constant the outpouring of
affection on both sides, the more that side of the child nature grows.
And the more it grows,--with mother watching over it, helping and
guiding, setting the example--the more it has to give to other people
and things. It will love a doll, a kitten, a puppy dog, and show them
the same sort of tender attention that it receives from mother. It will
feel sorry for a poor little bird with a broken wing; it will feel sorry
for father, when he comes home tired with a headache; it will put its
arms about father's neck and want to kiss the headache away.
As it grows older, it should be allowed to feel, and made to feel, that
mother's love and father's love will never desert it--that that love may
be counted on, as a mainstay of life, through thick and thin, fair
weather and foul, to the very end. This should not be left as a matter
of uncertainty, or wonder, or doubt. No mother should ever say to a
child, or allow it to imagine, that if it should be naughty or bad, or
do this, that or the other, mother would cease to love it, or father
would cease to love it. Such an idea is poisonous to the true feeling
and conception of love, which should be cherished in every child by
every mother. Mother should take pains to make the child feel,--and she
should take pains to make father do so, too,--that no matter what it
does, their love for it will never weaken or waver. It is not enough to
assume that this will be taken for granted--it should be confided to the
child, at opportune moments, as the most sacred of secrets, the holiest
of promises. And no time is more opportune for the telling of it--no
time means more or counts more--than one of those moments when the child
has done wrong and is troubled in its conscience, and feels ashamed and
forsaken. That is a splendid occasion, for a mother's love and a
father's love to prove themselves, by making doubly plain that although
they, too, may feel ashamed, the strength and warmth of their love is
undiminished.
With nourishment and care of this kind the heart nature of a child is
almost sure to grow and thrive. Its love will feel the influence of the
big love it receives and want to respond in kind. In due time, it may
say to itself, and confide as a holy secret to mother, that its feeling
for her and father will never change, either, no matter what happens, to
the end of time.
As regards consideration for others, with the constant help and guidance
and example of a devoted mother, this can be made to grow and thrive,
too, until it becomes a beautiful and sensitive part of second nature.
With such feelings nourished and cherished in this way, there is ground
for hope that one of a parent's sweetest and most fundamental
aspirations, in regard to the off-spring, will not be disappointed. The
heart will be in the right place.
Now, on the other hand, it is only too easy to see what may happen and
what does frequently happen, if this sacred responsibility of a mother
is neglected.
Suppose the child is left, for the greater part of the time, day in and
day out, to the companionship and care of a hired substitute, a nurse or
governess? In the first place, the substitute is very apt to have no
love at all, or what little it has, may be a very thin and shoddy
variety. Frequently a nurse is unsympathetic, irritable, and selfish.
That does not provide either good nourishment, or good example, for the
tender heart feelings.
When a child does wrong, the nurse scolds it and displays an ill-feeling
which is the very contrary of tenderness and affection. That is bad
enough, but it is not half so bad as the fact that this same repellent
treatment is very often accorded a child when it has not done wrong at
all, but has merely obeyed some spontaneous and beautiful impulse of its
little nature, which an irritable nurse does not bother to understand.
The way that a nurse wishes a child to go is not usually prompted by any
loving consideration for the heart feelings of the child, but a very
selfish consideration for the convenience and prejudices of the nurse.
I have known many cases where the sensitive feelings of a little boy or
girl have been turned to violent dislike by a nurse, or a governess. For
days and weeks and months they have been obliged to live in the constant
companionship and under the constant influence of an antipathy which
sours and freezes their affections. I have known cases where a nurse, in
order to achieve her own ends and relieve herself of trouble, has told a
child to lie quietly in bed, when the light goes out, or a big and
horrible bugaboo will creep out of the darkness and spring upon it. In
such cases, the nurse takes good care to keep the child from giving a
hint of this to mother or father, under pain of equally terrifying
consequences. I have friends to-day, grown up men and women, who cannot
go into a dark room, anywhere, without a shiver and shudder of nameless
dread, which began with that same black bugaboo.
I have known countless cases, where a nurse has said to a child, who has
done something wrong or annoying: "I don't love you any more. I don't
like you now at all." And I have known countless cases where mothers,
themselves, have said and acted the same thing. And the effect of that
is to belittle and corrupt in the child's heart a bigger and deeper
conception of love, as a loyal and steadfast thing, with no string
attached to it. If a nurse, or a mother, can withdraw her love, for a
slight cause, then a child when it grows up can expect to do the same; a
wife can withdraw her love from her husband, if he does something to
displease her; a husband from his wife; a son and a daughter from their
parents; a sister from her brother. How sad that seems, at first, and
how it hurts! But little by little, as one sees and learns, and as the
twig is bent--do not many up-to-date young people adapt themselves very
comfortably to that belittled conception of love? Do not the divorce
courts and remarriages and scattered children and the talk and acts of
emancipated women give ample evidence of it?
How glibly a certain kind of woman talks about sons and daughters
lacking affection, and being so selfish, and so inconsiderate of others!
How many of those women have taken the trouble to consider whether the
heart feelings of those sons and daughters were nourished and cherished
and guided, by the devotion of a loving mother?
This is a woefully inadequate sketch of one of the most important
elements of life, one of the most vital factors in the formation of
human character, about which volumes might be written. It may be enough,
however, to suggest reflection and a better understanding on the part of
some mothers, well-intentioned, but confused by progressive theories,
who are really in need of help.
We may now move on to the moral and spiritual feelings.
The most casual observer has no difficulty in noting the fact that most
children to-day are lacking in discipline, obedience, respect,
consideration for others, and many other qualities, which have been
regarded as essential to a well-bred person. There has been no end of
talk about it lately, as we know.
As far as I have been able to learn, there is a fairly general
consensus of opinion that this is due to a lack of the proper kind of
early training in the home. As often as this question has come up in my
presence, it has always been answered readily and confidently to this
same effect, and the answer has met with unanimous approval of men and
women alike.
But I have never heard one single woman attempt to explain how it is
that, with all the emancipation, and higher education, and scientific
enlightenment, which has been placed at her disposal, modern mothers
should fail to give their children a better training than ever, instead
of a worse. Is it good for the children? No, of course not, they admit.
Don't modern mothers love their children? How absurd! Every mother loves
her children--more than a man can understand. Then why is it modern
children don't receive proper training by their modern mothers? Oh,
well, a good many women, nowadays, have so many other things to do, they
haven't the time. Are these other things more important than the welfare
of their children? Not that--nothing could be more important. Then,
why--?
If anybody gets that far with the average modern woman, he has done very
well. She usually shrugs her shoulders, tells you not to be silly and
parries with some feeling remarks about husbands and fathers. What do
they do? And how do they do it? And who's really to blame?
If you ask a modern man the same question, and no women are present, he
may express himself confidentially, that most women, nowadays, are so
fed up on civic committees, or recreation centers--bridge parties or
pink teas--uplift movements or school boards--golf, tennis,
automobiling--that they don't know what's going on in their own homes.
They have advanced ideas about everything--principally themselves. When
it comes to the children, their advanced ideas result, pretty much, in
letting them get along without any home training at all.
The women, when left to themselves, usually have little trouble in
convincing themselves that if men had the proper kind of love for their
wives and showed them the consideration and devotion which every
feminine heart craves and is entitled to, there would be no trouble at
all about the home. Every true woman would be found to respond
magnificently. In nearly every case, the fault begins with the man--in
his neglect and selfishness--and then man-fashion, he turns around and
tries to lay it at the door of the woman. And so forth and so on.
But again, no one attempts to suggest, or explain, why it is that the
modern husband, who is better educated and more enlightened than
husbands ever were before, should be behaving so badly. It is enough to
agree and expatiate on the fact, without countless examples, that that
is how it is.
And the average mother, to-day, will be found expressing the fervent
hope that her son will not grow up to be as self-centered and neglectful
of his wife, as most husbands are.
The effect of such talk, naturally, is to becloud the point at issue and
confuse the mind. The point is that even in the minds of the women, the
unseemly behavior of young people of both sexes is due to a lack of
proper training in childhood. No enlightened woman believes, or claims,
that two wrongs make a right. She does not believe that a man could, or
should, take the place of a mother in dealing with children. She does
not believe that he should become soft and effeminate, for the tender
training of infants, but on the contrary, should be energetic and manly,
for the battle of success.
As far as the children are concerned, she cannot but admit that the
immediate responsibility has nowhere else to rest but in her. If she
chooses to pass it over to a nurse or governess, that is her affair. It
is for her to engage or discharge the nurse and governess as she sees
fit. And it is rare indeed to find a mother anywhere who would think of
allowing any interference with what she considers her fundamental right.
If she neglects her responsibility, or fails in it, and the results are
more or less disastrous, it is a very feminine excuse, to argue that she
has a selfish and inconsiderate husband. The care of the children was
her affair, not his; both herself and nature agree upon insisting that
this should be so.
In this connection, therefore, it is to the mothers, principally, that
we should address ourselves. At some other time, we may, if we choose,
enter upon a discussion of that complex and much confused question of
husband and wife in their relation to each other.
Under present-day conditions, curiously enough, the first thing it seems
necessary to ask a mother is this:
Did you ever stop to reflect upon the tremendous and wonderful
importance which may attach to the bringing up of one single child? Even
if your heart feelings are rather anemic and your soul-feelings have
become so muddled and confused by practical considerations that you no
longer get any real message or inspiration from those two divine
sources, yet you still have left a modern and enlightened brain. Even
that is enough to make you almost dizzy at the thought of this thing,
if you will pause long enough to give it careful attention.
A modern battleship, or an airplane, or an automobile, is a vastly
complicated and efficient piece of machinery. If you, yourself, left to
your own resources, had the ability to turn out a complete battleship of
the most improved design, you would doubtless consider that you had
achieved something to be immensely proud of. But the greatest battleship
on earth is not one-hundredth part as complicated and efficient a piece
of machinery as your little son. And one of a dozen different faculties
with which your son is equipped--the power of memory, for instance--is
infinitely more intricate and more wonderful than anything and
everything about a battleship put together.
You might have an ambition to paint a beautiful picture, or compose
beautiful music, or write beautiful poetry, or do something else with
your life which you deem to be useful or beneficial to your fellow men.
But by cherishing such ambitions in your son and transmitting to him all
that is best in your own self, this same result may be obtained for the
use and benefit of your fellow men. And in addition to that, you will
have given to the world a wonderful human being, who may be able to
achieve many bigger and better things than you could hope to do. More
than that, your son may be able to transmit the ambitions and feelings
which you have given him, to his children and their children, until your
one achievement in making a splendid son, may expand and multiply into a
wonderful lot of men and women, each and every one of whom may achieve
more useful and beautiful things for the benefit of mankind than you
could hope to do. All this may readily come about, if you apply yourself
unsparingly to the unique and glorious task of making your son the right
kind of man.
This is only one part of the wonder. If you are willing to devote your
heart and soul to this one task, another recompense is in store for
you--a multitude of sublime recompenses. Each and every fine and
beautiful thing your son does, as long as you live, will fill you with
deeper gladness, more intense joy, than anything you yourself could
possibly accomplish, through your own efforts. That is the crowning
miracle of a mother's love and every mother who loves her own with all
her heart, knows that it is eternally true. Just to look at your son and
feel that he is fine and right and worthy of all the love you have
lavished on him, is to taste an exquisite contentment, to which no
other kind of earthly pleasure is comparable.
And this same feeling of contentment will be waiting to steal into your
heart upon the coming of your son's children--each and every one. Your
mother's love will find a renewal of its glory in your grandchildren.
For they, too, have in them the same mysterious spirit of you which you
cherished in your son. And so, as you sit back, in old age, in brooding
contentment over the young lives, so full of possibilities, you may
reflect, in the sweetest way imaginable, that it is going on
indefinitely, this essence of you and yours, on and on, to the end of
time, fulfilling on earth the unfathomed but divine purpose of the
all-wise Creator.
People whose interest in life is centered in self-indulgence and
material pleasure, may regard with dread the approach of old age; but
not so a mother, whose deepest feelings have gone unreservedly to her
children. To her it will come smiling, with the radiance of that most
beautiful of all periods--a golden Indian summer.
Take it all in all--for the reasons we have suggested and many
others--the bringing up and giving to the world of a fine human being,
the endeavor to make that human being as nearly right as possible, is
the most important, the most profoundly significant undertaking that
exists on earth. The all-wise Creator has entrusted that work, in a most
beautiful and soul-stirring way, to mother love, the deepest and
strongest feeling of which humanity is capable.
If a mere man will devote the greatest part of his energies, day in and
day out, year in and year out, to making pictures, or making stoves, or
making money, to support the family,--how can a mother be unwilling to
devote as much of her energy to this sacred task, which she knows is of
more vital consequence than any material thing?
Would that some one might be found to carry this message to every mother
in the land--some one whose voice is so tender and true and appealing,
that it might find its way straight to the core of their hearts and
souls--clearing up the tangle of confused notions which the sexless
reason and self-interest of progressive intellects have been making!
In the meanwhile, we must be content to see things as they are and pin
our faith to the belief that, as the baleful effects of the current
misunderstanding become more and more apparent, the mother love, of its
own accord, will become sufficiently alarmed, to throw aside its
lethargy and seek to make amends by devoting itself more consistently
to the welfare of its own.
Let us assume, therefore, that a mother of the present day, is deeply
concerned in the moral and spiritual feelings of her children--that she
wants them to have fine sentiments and fine characters--and that she is
anxious to do anything within her power to bring this result about. What
is she to do? What method is she to follow? In this age of
enlightenment, with all sorts of theories in the air, how is she to know
the proper way of forming a fine character? As a matter of fact, in many
cases, it is just because her ideas on this subject have become so
confused, that many a modern mother has been led to side-step the
responsibility and let things drift along in the easiest way, after the
example of those about her.
One of the first questions that is sure to confront her is the question
of discipline and obedience. On the one hand, is the traditional idea of
the past--"Spare the rod and spoil the child." She is familiar with this
and there is nearly always someone near her who advocates it
firmly--very possibly her own husband. On the other hand, she has read
and heard and seen a lot which is directly opposed to that. Children
should not be controlled by fear, like animals. There is something mean
and ugly and revolting in the very idea. It is better to be loved than
feared--better for the mother and better for the child.
Between these two contradictory principles, even if she has the best
intentions in the world, what is she to do? Is it to be wondered at, if
many a modern mother, in this predicament, vacillates between the two?
She doesn't like to punish the child and most of the time she avoids
doing it; but now and then, when things have gone too far, or she is
tired and irritable, she makes up for it by losing her temper and going
to extremes. And the effect of this kind of treatment on the forming of
a child's character is about as bad as could be. It doesn't produce
discipline and it doesn't produce obedience; and it doesn't lead the way
to any moral conception or principle. What it does inculcate in the
child spirit very quickly is a feeling that the attitude of mother is
largely a matter of mood, a very uncertain and variable quantity, which
for the time being has to be put up with. And as the child cares more
for mother, presumably, than anybody else in the world, it is no more
than natural for it to apply this same point-of-view to other people
with whom it comes into contact. There may be a certain amount of
precocious wisdom in this, but it does not help the growth of moral
feeling. And so it happens, in many cases, that at the very start, the
twig is given a bend in the wrong direction.
No mother really wants to spoil her child. She may say, with a loving
and enigmatical smile, that she prefers to "spoil" it; but that is only
her way of saying that she knows better than some stern and misguided
people what is best for its tender wants. If she thought for a moment
she was really spoiling the child's character, she would stop smiling at
once and become very much exercised.
As we have started with this question of discipline, let us not leave it
until we have followed it out to the full limit of our reflections.
If the choice necessarily resolved itself into one or the other of these
two principles--strict obedience, rigidly enforced by punishment; or a
vacillating policy of petting and scolding, leading to moral
confusion--there could be little hesitation in deciding which would be
apt to give better results in the formation of character. The old way,
if somewhat crude and summary, has proved itself capable of producing
discipline and respect for authority, a womanly woman and a manly man.
The other way has not given much evidence of producing anything nearly
so worthy or admirable.
But, as a matter of fact, the choice need not be, and should not be,
limited to these two principles at all. There is another method of
arriving at the formation of character which is essentially different
from either.
The chief fault of the old method of giving the child a whipping, if it
disobeys, is by no means confined to a lessening of a child's love for
the mother, who whips it. This is one consideration which is given great
weight by many women, at present. It would in itself be a real hurt to
the mother and a real hurt to the child. But there are other
considerations. Sometimes the whipping may not be deserved--it may be
occasioned by a loss of temper, or a misunderstanding--and in such cases
it is apt to leave a feeling of resentment and injustice. This is in
addition to the feeling of fear, which corporal punishment is apt to
produce. Quite irrespective of the harm to love, it introduces a false
motive into the formation of character. The little sprouts of conscience
may be overshadowed by this weed of fear. The fear of a whip, in a hand
which may be strong but not necessarily just, very naturally brings into
play the instinct of self-defence, to prompt and justify all manner of
concealment, deception, cunning, lying. Those are a lot more weeds
which may in time crowd out the more delicate soul feelings.
Discipline, bought at such a price, is paid for very dearly. In my own
personal experience as boy and man, the most hypocritical, mean-spirited
treacherous characters I have come into contact with, were among those
who had been most disciplined by unsympathetic and unrelenting parents.
This is not to say, or imply, that corporal punishment, or stern
treatment, necessarily leads to such unfortunate results. It is merely
to indicate some of the possible dangers and drawbacks. With sturdy,
primitive natures, an occasional beating is a matter of little moment;
while for unthinking, commonplace minds, and undeveloped, unsensitive
souls, the habit of obedience and docile respect for authority, in any
and all forms, may be an excellent thing. A wolf cannot be trained in
the same way as a setter dog, or a canary bird; and even among horses,
the kind of treatment that a cart-horse thrives under, would ruin a
thoroughbred completely.
The traditional methods of handling children date back to a time when
there were many wolves and cart-horses and no method would have
generally survived which did not include them.