I look back now and realize the training school of deceit founded by the
parents of the olden days in making such a mystery of the simple truths
of life and causing the most beautiful ideas of creation to become so
shamefully distorted in the mind of the child. Things are very different
today. It will be said that many children are enlightened on these
subjects, yet it is my conviction that the knowledge that is doled out
to the children of today is still too superficial. The parents
themselves do not realize the depths of the wondering in the minds of
their children.
One of the favorite sports was camping out. We used to go to a great
pasture not far from the homes, where the underbrush was quite dense,
and make our camp. We would hunt wild game in our imagination and return
to cook whatever names we had given to the various supplies we had
brought from home. Chickens, like children, roamed at will over the two
farms (it will be remembered that both my father and my uncle were
artists and not in sympathy with the conventions of the up-to-date
farmer) and we were allowed often to add a chicken to our menu. It was
probably eaten as being partridge or wild duck, and as such was hugely
enjoyed.
After supper, when it was beginning to grow dusky, we would lie around
the fire and discuss the girls we knew. We used always to talk from the
boys’ viewpoint; it never seemed to occur to the boys that I was a girl,
excepting when they were on the investigation committee. They then
rather thought of me as a female.
They always paid great attention to what I thought of this and that
girl. Not from a sexual standpoint, but as to looks, cleverness in books
or sports, etc. By this time we had broadened our circle of friends, as
we were going to the village two miles away for the higher schools. I
was interested in the girls in the same way as were the boys. I never
thought of discussing any of the boys. In my mind a boy was always sized
up as to his skill in baseball, skating, dancing, and in his studies.
It was never my idea of a girl’s friendship to get together to talk
about the boys. Most girls were of this sort. When I found a girl who
would be fond of the same out-of-doors occupations as I and who would
talk about herself, I enjoyed her. I seemed to be anxious to find out
whether other girls were like myself—in ideas, likes, and dislikes.
To go back a step to pick up one more experience, in order to show what
things were going on over a half century ago. In the little New England
district school near our home the proverbial spelling match was in
progress. As the spaces were rather small for standing room for all of
the pupils at one time, it was necessary for each side to stand two deep
in line and, as in all standing recitations, the hands were to be held
behind the backs. One of the “big boys” was directly back of me and I
suddenly felt something pushed against my hand which, unfortunately, I
recognized and quickly put my hands in front of me, for which I was
promptly sent to my seat. This was a great blow to me as I was one who
usually stood up the longest, and to think that I could not tell the
teacher why I put my hands in front of me was even a greater blow. How I
hated that boy and showed my feelings often, I am afraid! To see him
standing there with such an innocent air, while I had to pay the price
of his filthiness, made me mad.
What was it that kept me from denouncing him then and there? No one
liked him, excepting the teacher. He would have lied out of it and I
would have been dubbed a liar and a tattle-tale, neither of which traits
did I possess.
What a sad creature a professional prostitute must be! I think they must
choose to be of that class. Certainly my early education and training by
the sort of males with whom I came in contact might have led me to that
end, had not my whole nature and instincts revolted violently against
all contact with the male. In this manner I held my position in accepted
“good society” all of my life.
When I hear a doting mother say, as I often do, “My boy or girl tells me
everything!” I smile in sadness, as I well know that the boys and girls
are few and far between who dare to tell their innermost thoughts and
doings to their parents. Because they talk freely about some things, the
parent thinks there is nothing held back. The shame which their
forebears have had drilled into them still has its grip on each
successive generation.
The frankness with which a girl answers her mother today is to my mind
bravado rather than confidence. For instance, a mother of my
acquaintance found in her daughter’s vanity case a protector for the
male during coition, and questioned her daughter in tones severe as to
why she should carry one of these things about with her. The daughter
answered quite nonchalantly, “Why, we girls have to furnish those things
now ourselves or the boys won’t have anything to do with us.” Result:
Mother so stunned she simply had no reply at hand, and young daughter
went on her way, rejoicing probably that said protector was not
confiscated by shocked Mamma and she obliged to swing her toes idly at
home for the evening, labeled “unprotected.” This mother wonders now how
much there may be that she does not dare ask, for fear she will hear the
truth and discover something even worse.
I was considered a “carefully brought up” child. Consider what was going
on right under the very eyes of my parents. They knew as little fifty
years ago as do the parents of today know what problems of sex their
children are having to meet.
How different my own childhood would have been if I had dared tell my
mother the whole truth about myself. I do not believe that a child is
born with a propensity for lying. Sad though it may seem, I believe that
lesson is taught to the tiny tot very early in life. I do think that if
my parents had known the whole truth about me, they would never have
blamed me nor punished me. But the fear that was instilled into me at
the first spanking, when I could see no reason for it, made me afraid
ever after.
For years I fancied that the experience that I had with the boys and men
in my early life might have had its influence on certain traits of
character which puzzled me for many years, and of which I shall speak
later. Now I believe that my nature was normal from the beginning and
that the dislike for men as males was inherent.
A girl once told me of her life and that of her sister when they were
young, and even after they matured, which convinced me more than ever
that I was not of their type. These two girls were brought up in the
country by a city-reared mother, the father having passed on. They were
rich, and the mother was considered very exclusive by the people of
“Main Street.”
She brought city ideas into this small community. Her girls were never
allowed to go to a party, a picnic, or out driving without a chaperone.
Needless to say, the girls did not enjoy much popularity. This girl told
me that she and her sister had almost daily relations with a common old
Irishman who worked about the place, although he had a home and a large
family near by.
These girls seemed to have been greatly thrilled by the experience,
which covered quite a long period of years. They belonged to the next
generation from mine, which is one added proof of the statement that the
problems of sex have been present with all children, from the beginning.
Those thrills were something I could not understand, even at her age at
the time she told me, although I was probably much younger than she when
I was initiated into the mysteries of sex.
I find I am intruding more mature thoughts from time to time, but now I
will go back to my childhood days, as a child.
In our neighborhood there was an “older girl” who was not, for some
unknown reason, considered a desirable member of society. While I was
not forbidden to go to see her, my mother always discouraged my doing
so, which of course stimulated my desire to see her as often as I could.
One afternoon as I went in, I found her in a very angry mood. She told
me she was going to a dance that night and she had “come around” that
morning. I was mystified and asked her what in the world she meant and
where she had been. Then she gave me a very crude and unpleasant
description of the monthly occurrence which I, of course, had in my mind
attributed to the painful manipulations of some man, and that, once
over, would never recur. I did not let her know of these ideas,
naturally, but asked numberless questions. My whole being was in
rebellion that, being a girl, it was to be my lot to go through all
these fearful things, at times most inconvenient, as she laid great
stress on that point, owing to her present predicament.
She went on, however, to enlighten me further as to how to overcome this
difficulty of having the occurrence interfere with her dancing. She
would go out to a very cold brook, fed by water from a mountain spring,
and put her feet in it for a while. The condition would then cease for a
time, so that she could be in comfort as to outside interference, even
though it might give her some pain.
She was also munching cloves by the dozen, as she said they would dry up
her blood and that was good for such things!
She did not use delicate language and while all of this was intensely
interesting, quite making me forget to go home on time, it also
disgusted me still further with my fate.
I ran all the way home and arrived feverish and excited. I probably also
looked very guilty, first for being late and then on account of the
filthy things which had been told me. My mother looked at me sharply and
I saw visions of a spanking and early retirement. I was not disappointed
in these visions and in addition I was definitely forbidden to go to see
that girl again. In a way, I must have reasoned that there was some
justice in that punishment for I did feel that I had been told of things
very nasty. But in reality how unjust all of those punishments were!
Poor mother did not know, however, and she was doing her duty according
to her lights.
I do not think I was ever a disobedient child. I was never whipped at
school but witnessed many of the cruel floggings which were condoned at
that time. I took my spankings at home in much the same spirit that I
did the doses of “Elixir Pro” and “Sulphur and molasses” (Ugh, I can
almost gag at the thought now!) with which we were dosed in the morning
before breakfast, every once in so often. Not knowing why, just a nasty
taste soon forgotten.
In one way I have been glad of those early chastisements, for when I
have had many children under my care, I have been able to handle their
punishments in a far better and more effective way.
To me the natural mischief of children was like the bubbling up of a
spring of clear water. Who would think of filling up that natural spring
with dirt and rubbish to choke it up? A spanking to my mind would have
the same effect on the free animal spirits of the normal growing child.
I have found a child to be the most reasonable of creatures. A
discussion of deeds which are not desirable, with a child whose brain is
not clogged up with all sorts of theories, brings quick and most
satisfactory results.
A child is born with an exaggerated question mark in his brain. I
believe it would not be there if there were not also there sufficient
gray matter to understand the answers to those questions, if the fool
older humans had developed brains enough to have simple but truthful
answers ready for them.