“As well bury me alive after the first year of married life!” cries Mrs.
A-la-mode. “I, with my education and accomplishments, may surely aspire
to a higher position than that of nursery-maid! I consider that I serve
my children more effectually by reserving my strength and cultivating my
talents against such time as their maturer minds shall require my
companionship.”
In other words, Mrs. A-la-mode leaves it to hired menials to work,
irrigate, and plant the virgin soil, and expects, in the ripening of the
harvest, to put in her patent sickle--latest style--and gather such
grain as she shall then decree. I am acquainted with but one way in
which a woman can conscientiously and surely evade the fulfilment of a
mother’s obligations. In this day and country, there are no forced
marriages. If Miss Faintheart and Miss Easy abhor the prospect of
directing and fostering a young family, they can remain single; and, to
be frank, I think the next generation will be the gainers by their
celibacy.
Again, and strictly apropos to this division of my subject--_Babies have
a right to be heard_.
“My dear children,” said a Sabbath-school lecturer; “when I say ‘boys’ I
mean girls, and when I say ‘girls’ I mean boys.”
He designed to be entirely comprehensive in his address, and engage the
attention of both sexes; but his juvenile auditors were evidently in a
state of terrible confusion after this lucid preamble, most of them
imagining that he meditated some game of cross-purposes; as when “Rise,
No. 2” means that No. 2 must do quite the opposite thing and not budge,
upon penalty of a forfeit. But when I say “babies,” I mean children of
tender years--legal infants--and do not confine myself altogether to
those in arms.
Especially has a baby a right to a hearing from Mamma. Unless you have
been so foolish as to let him form a habit of crying--and this should be
carefully avoided--his wail or scream always means that something is
amiss, and it is your business to find out what it is. If you choose to
send Bridget to see “what ails that child, now!” at least let him be
brought to you for inquiry and for judgment. Take the convulsed,
struggling little fellow in your arms; draw his head to your bosom; pat
the wet cheeks and kiss the mouth quivering in distress, that is more
than he can bear, slight and ridiculous as it may be to you. Soothe and
quiet, before you chide, should there seem to be need for reproof.
Remember--and it is a sadly solemn thought--that your arms form the only
refuge outside the bosom of Infinite Compassion, to which he can, as man
and boy, flee alike in sin and woe, in innocence and joy. Don’t hush his
sobbed confession or complaint, however strangled and unintelligible. It
does him good to utter it, whether you understand it or not. Don’t call
him “a silly boy” for crying because he has broken the whip Papa gave
him only this morning, or because the pretty kitty Auntie sent him has
proved ungrateful and deserted her doting master. It is doubtful if you
ever had what was to you a greater loss than either of these is to him.
If his are tears of bereavement, kiss them away and hold up some promise
of future delight that shall cast a rainbow athwart the cloud of grief.
If he weeps in childish anger, be loving, while you rebuke. He loses
much--how much, Eternity can only tell--who has not learned, from
experience, the fullness and sweetness of that simple line--“_As one
whom his mother comforteth_.”
Never let your child have his cry out alone. If he is old enough to
observe that yours is studied neglect, he has also sense sufficient to
enable him to put his own construction upon what is, to him, your cruel
indifference to his suffering; and just in proportion as he recognizes
and resents this, your influence over him is weakened; his faith in your
love shaken. If he is too young to guess why you disregard his outcry,
terror and pain lay hold of his spirit, as is evinced by the changed
tone of his lamentation. Shall I tell you a little story, just here, one
which is unfortunately drawn from life?
A mother--a good woman, but a trifle too strong of will, and wedded to a
pet theory of family government, according to which, children were but
machines, to be subject in every particular to the authority of the
chief engineer--one evening laid her babe, about ten months old, in his
crib, for the night. The child manifested great unwillingness to lie
still, and presently began to cry. The mother seated herself quietly to
work upon the other side of the room, and took no outward notice of his
screams. An elderly gentleman, a relative, was present, and
remonstrated with her upon her silence.
“He will certainly injure himself, if you do not stop his crying!”
“That is the old-fashioned doctrine,” replied the parent, with a smile
of conscious superiority. “I always expect one grand struggle for
supremacy with each of my children. He is in revolt now, and must be
treated as a rebel. If I yield, and take him up, the lesson is lost.”
“I don’t ask you to take him up! Only speak to him. He is well-nigh
heart-broken. He will rupture a blood-vessel.”
“No danger! It strengthens his lungs to cry in that uproarious manner. I
have known babies to scream for two or three hours, without sustaining
the least injury.”
“You will excuse me, at any rate, from staying here to see the battle
out!” and the uncle left the room.
Returning, at the end of an hour, he found the child still
screaming--now, in an anguished shriek that rent the man’s heart. The
woman and mother sat still and sewed steadily--it seemed calmly.
“I can not and will not bear this!” ejaculated the old gentleman. “If
you don’t take pity on that poor little thing, I will!”
“Uncle!” the niece lifted her stern eyes. “I permit no one--not even my
husband--to interfere in my management of my child. His passion is at
its height. It will soon subside.”
The cries were, indeed, growing less vehement. Too anxious to retire
again until the scene was over, the uncle walked the room, hearkening,
with tortured nerves, to the feebler and still feebler wail; sinking, by
and by, into fitful sobbings; then, into pants like those of a tired,
hunted-down animal. These came at longer and longer intervals--and all
was still. The uncle approached the crib, and bent over it.
“An hour and three-quarters!” said the mother, triumphantly, looking at
the clock. “You will find, uncle, that, having gained this victory, I
shall never have another contest with him.”
“You never will, madam!” was the awful rejoinder. “Your child is dead!”
I wish I could say that this incident was of doubtful authenticity, but
it is _true_, from beginning to end. I grant you that it is an extreme
case, but the like might occur with any young child. Ask yourself how
you would endure a fit of violent hysterical weeping, for the space of
an hour, or an hour and three-quarters! Days would elapse ere you
recovered from the effects of the shock to nerves and heart; but “it
never hurts an infant to cry.” That which would exhaust and irritate
your lungs, “strengthens” his!
If your older child has any thing to divulge which he deems important,
contrive to give him a patient hearing; encourage him to full
confidence. Many a life has been embittered by fears or fancies, that
could have been removed as soon as they were formed, by five minutes’
free conversation with a kind, sensible parent. To this day, I own to
feeling an unpleasant sensation at the sight of any singularly-shaped or
colored cloud in the heavens. This I attribute directly to a terrible
fright I had when but four and a half years old.
My nurse, a young colored girl--a genuine Topsey, by the way--had early
instructed me in the popular belief concerning the personal appearance
of His Satanic Majesty, and I had swallowed every word, until his horns,
cloven hoof, forked tail, fiery breath, and worst of all, a certain
three-pronged fork he was in the habit of carrying about with him, that
he might impale unwary sinners, as Indians spear salmon--were articles
of as firm faith with me as was the fact of my own existence. He had an
inconvenient practice of careering through mid-air--Topsey had
added--with this trident already poised, on the lookout for bad little
girls, who were supposed to be dainty tidbits in his estimation. One
day, I was walking in the garden, unconscious of coming ill, when,
chancing to look up, I saw, right above me, a small, dark cloud,
irregular in outline, and moving swiftly before a strong wind. My first
glance caught only this; my second traced, with the rapidity of
lightning, the head, the tail, the lower limbs, and, brandishing wildly
in air, the right arm, holding the fatal flesh-fork!
St. Dunstan or Luther would have stood his ground, as did Christian
against Apollyon, but I had not the pluck of these worthies, and had I
been endowed with the spirit of all three, there were neither tongs,
ink-stand, nor two-edged sword handy. So I chose the wiser part of
valor, and ran, in frenzied haste, for the house, never stopping until I
was safely ensconced under my mother’s bed. Here I lay for a long time,
quaking with fear, queer shivers running down my spine at thought of the
sharp points I had so narrowly escaped. Then the supper-bell rang, and I
crept out, unperceived. I had no appetite, and must have worn a
strange, scared look, for my mother asked if I were sick. I answered,
“No,” very shame-facedly, and she did not press her inquiries. Children
are not apt to be very communicative as to any great fright, except in
the excitement of the first alarm. They fear to live it over in the
recital.
That night, for the first time in my life, I cried to have the lamp left
burning in the chamber where I slept. My mother reasoned with me, for a
while, telling me that the angels watched over good children, etc. This
I did not doubt, but I was by no means sure that I _was_ a good child.
The apparition of the afternoon was frightful circumstantial evidence to
the contrary. At last she scolded me for my cowardice and went away,
taking the precious light with her. I wonder that my hair did not turn
white during the ensuing hours of thick darkness. I pity myself now, as
I remember the poor, frightened baby, lying trembling on her little bed,
and staring into the gloom, peopled by her imagination with horrors.
Driven to desperation, I once awoke my older sister, who shared my
couch, and, in an awe-stricken whisper, imparted my fears and their
origin. She was not credulous or imaginative, and, perhaps, did not
quite understand what I said, for her only answer was--“pshaw!” and she
was sound asleep again in a second. How and when slumber came to me I
know not, but my mother reproved me, next morning, for wrapping the
coverlet so tightly about my head, saying that I would be smothered some
night, if I continued the practice.
Three sentences from either of my parents would have laid the hobgoblin
to rest forever, and I recollect that I did, several times, essay to
broach the subject to my mother, very unskillfully, I dare say, for she
did not encourage my preliminary remarks, and resolution failed me
before I reached the point. I was a tall girl of fourteen when I
confessed to her that, for five or six years, I believed that I had
really seen the devil!
Lastly--for my rambling “talk” has already transcended the limits I at
first assigned to it--_Babies have a right to be babies_.
That precocious and unnatural growth of prudence, propriety, and
learning in young children, which is variously described as
“old-fashioned,” “smart,” and “wearing a gray head upon green
shoulders,” is sometimes an offensive, always a pitiable sight. A life
without childhood is like an arid summer day, to which the dew of
morning has been denied. There are blossoms which the heat of incipient
decay has forced into premature expansion. We all understand this law
of Divine husbandry. Happy is she who has never had reason to tremble at
sight of this early and brilliant bloom; who has not wept unavailing
tears over the pale blossom, as it lay, crushed and faded, at the
grave’s mouth! Well is it then for the bereaved mother’s peace of mind
if she can, in the review of the brief years during which the gifted one
was lent to her, comfort herself with the thought that she strove, in
patient, far-seeing love, to repress, rather than stimulate, the
unhealthy growth of intellectual powers that were in danger of
outstripping physical vigor; that she rose superior to the vulgar
ambition to have her child excel all others of his age in scholarship
and showy accomplishments. Ah! it is not until the golden locks are
hidden by the green sod, and the busy brain forever still, that,
recalling the deep sayings and vivid thought-flashes that made us look
upon our noble boy with such triumphant affection, we measure the short
mound with tear-blinded eyes, and say: “We should have known, from the
first, that all our bright dreams for him were to suffer rude, terrible
awakening _here_! When we should have looked for the blade only, the
bud appeared and the flowers. The fruit could only ripen in heaven!”
Do not seek to make of your children monstrous, uncomely, infant
phenomena. If, by some special interposition of preserving mercy, their
lives and health do not fall a sacrifice to your weak vanity, you will
discover, when your prodigy has completed his course of book-study, that
he is not one whit better fitted for the actual fight with life and
labor than is the fellow-student who used to ran wild, with torn hat,
trousers out at the knees, rough fists, chapped by wind and weather, and
pockets frightfully distended by a miscellaneous collection of unripe
apples, jack-stones, peanuts, top-cord, “taffey,” whistles, gingerbread,
pocket-knife, hard-boiled eggs, iron nails, of assorted sizes, and,
perhaps, a living specimen or two, in the shape of a spotted terrapin or
a June-bug, with a string tied to its leg; the while your Pindar
Augustus, in white linen pants and cheeks to match, sat in learned
abstraction from all mean and common things, his spine curved, and his
baby-brows knit over his Homer or Euclid. It is distressing, yet
instructive, to see how the mill of every-day life grinds down college
geniuses into very ordinary men; how the oft-quoted logic of events
proves the “bright particular star” of
[Illustration]
the family circle and the school-room to be, after all, a luminary of,
at best, the fourth or fifth magnitude. You gain nothing except
mortification and disappointment, by cheating your wonderful scion out
of his childhood.
I am afraid that most of us, even those who have not fallen into the
gravely absurd error just referred to, are yet apt to expect too much of
our bairns. They may be marvels of sweetness, and sprightliness, and
filial devotion, but they are only babies after all. “Children should be
seen--not heard!” is often repeated by us in thoughtlessness or
ignorance of the real character of the maxim. It is illiberal and cruel,
and belongs to the age when a father held almost unlimited power over
the very life of his child; when the younger members of the household
never dared to sit down in the presence of their parents, without their
express and gracious permission. I agree that a pert, loud-tongued child
is an offence, at all times, but do not let us, on this account, condemn
to silence the bird-like voices that make sweetest music in our hearts
and homes. Even birds sing sometimes when we would rather they should
refrain; so let us be forbearing with the clamor of the babies. Do not
pretend to judge them by the rules you would apply to grown people.
“Father!” says a bright-eyed boy, as his parent enters the house at
evening, “did you remember to get me the ball you promised?”
“I did not, Tom. You shall certainly have it to-morrow.”
Tom goes off, in apparent content. In reality, he is sorely
disappointed; but he is a good child, and does not wish to make his
father unhappy. The promise for to-morrow helps him to bear the trial
tolerably well. The next evening, he is more backward about asking. He
hangs around his parent’s chair for some time, in hopeful suspense, but
as the longed-for plaything does not appear, he ventures timidly upon a
diplomatic “feeler”--
“Father, maybe you’ve forgot your promise, again?”
The father has had a harassing day--filled with carking care--and the
smouldering temper needs but a spark to influence it.
“Boy!” he says, hastily, “if you ever say ‘ball’ to me again, you shall
not have it at all! I will not be teased out of my life about your
jimcracks!”
Tom shrinks back, as if he had been struck in the face; creeps silently
off to his little room, and there, in solitude, cries as if his heart
would break. He _has_ had a blow. It is not so much the loss of the toy,
but his is a sensitive nature, and his father’s words were sharp swords.
He meant to be very good, very patient. Nothing was further from his
thoughts than to annoy his usually kind parent. Mingling with, and
embittering his grief, is a burning sense of injustice. He knows that
the injury was undeserved.
“Father wouldn’t have talked so to a grown man! It’s just because I’m a
poor little boy, and can’t help myself!”
I fear there is too much truth in this shrewd conclusion of Tom’s. We
would not dare insult those of our own age, as we do our children.
“That boy is growing sulky!” growls the father. “Did you see how glum he
looked because I forgot a paltry plaything? I must take him in hand!”
Then is the time for you, the mother of the wronged child, to speak up
boldly in his behalf. Represent kindly, but candidly, to your irritated
lord, the true value of the promised gift to the boy, and the greatness
of the disappointment.
“And after all, Papa, we can not expect Tom to exercise much
self-control or self-denial yet. Remember, he is just five years old,
and babies will be babies, you know!”
If he is the husband so good a wife and mother deserves to have, he will
not only acknowledge his fault to you, but seek out little Tom in his
lonely chamber, and with a fond kiss tell him that “Papa spoke shortly
awhile ago, because he was very tired and had had a great deal to
trouble him to-day, but that he will surely remember to bring him a
famous great ball to-morrow night.”
There are times and circumstances in which it is very hard to remember
that “babies will be babies.” Bessy, and Kitty, and Freddy are playing
in the nursery adjoining your bedroom, where you lie in the agonies of
“one of your headaches.” Every not-very-strong mother knows just what
that means. You have told the little ones that you are in great pain,
and having provided them with books, blocks, slates, and the like
“sitting-still plays,” as Bessie calls them, and begging them to try and
be quiet for half an hour, have withdrawn to your darkened retreat. They
are loving, well-meaning children, and, for almost ten minutes, there is
a refreshing season of calm. You are just forgetting torture in a
soothing slumber, when, thump! bang! down comes the castle, the
erection of which has kept Freddy still thus long. He would not be a boy
if he did not hurrah at the crash; the girls laugh and clap their hands;
and uproar is shortly the order of the hour. Don’t spring from your bed,
and, confronting them with your pale face and bloodshot eyes, accuse
them of disobedience and want of affection for you. They love you very
dearly, and they “did mean to mind,” they will tell you penitently, “but
they just forgot!”
It is baby-nature to be forgetful, and I am glad that it is. The
injuries, and slights, and wounded feeling of maturer years are enough
to make of memory a whip of scorpions. I am thankful that, with the
child, a kiss, a smile, a kind word will efface the recollection of the
hasty reproof, the cross look, or--I blush for human nature as
illustrated in some women while I write it!--the impatient blow that has
wrung blood from the tender little heart. Thank Heaven that babies have
short memories! so short that the suffering of cutting one tooth is
clean forgotten before the next saws its jagged edge through the swollen
gum.
Furthermore, keep them babies so long as you can without making yourself
and them ridiculous, and interfering with the graver duty of preparing
them for their place in the working-world. The dew-drop must exhale by
and by, but it lingers longest in the bosom of the flower that folds its
petals most jealously and fondly above it. The virgin purity of the snow
must change, with dust and melting, into the hue of the earth beneath;
but it is a woeful sight. We would fain delay the process by every means
in our power. Above all, let us make it our prayer that we may never
forget that we were once children, and how we felt, reasoned, and acted
then.
Who of us does not treasure in her casket of remembrance certain golden
days or hours that we would not lose for the wealth of a kingdom? Your
daughter leans against your knee, as my little five-year-old does on
mine, with “Mamma, please tell me a story about when you were a little
girl; how glad you were when your Papa brought you home a new doll, with
blue eyes and curling hair, in place of the one the dogs tore up; or
about the grand holidays you used to have in the woods; or how your Papa
once took you to slide on the ice-pond--and O, Mamma! do tell me about
all the Christmases you ever had!”
All the Christmases I ever had! I wish I could remember them, every
one--for those I do recall are strung upon my memory like pearls upon a
silken cord, and each is a joy forever. There is but one against which
I have set a black cross--the dreadful morning when the first thing I
drew from my stocking was a switch! I seem to see the lithe, keen,
wicked-looking rod now, and hear the shout of laughter that greeted its
appearance--mirth, that quickly subsided before my torrent of grief and
shame. I was soon told that the obnoxious article was placed there “in
fun,” by a visitor in the family.
I should like to see the visitor who should dare to practice such a
piece of “fun” upon one of _my_ children!
Never deny the babies their Christmas! It is the shining seal set upon a
year of happiness. If the preparations for it--the delicious mystery
with which these are invested; the solemn parade of clean, whole
stockings in the chimney corner; or the tree, decked in secret, to be
revealed in glad pomp upon the festal day--if these and many other
features of the anniversary are tedious or contemptible in your sight,
you are an object of pity; but do not defraud your children of joys
which are their right, merely because you have never tasted them. Let
them believe in Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas, or Kriss Kringle, or
whatever name the jolly Dutch saint bears in your region. Some
latter-day zealots, more puritanical than wise, have felt themselves
called upon, in schools, and before other juvenile audiences, to deny
the claims of the patron of merry Christmas to popular love and
gratitude. Theirs is a thankless office; both parents and children
feeling themselves to be aggrieved by the gratuitous disclosure, and
this is as it should be. If it be wicked to encourage such a delusion in
infant minds, it must be a transgression that leans very far indeed to
virtue’s side.
All honor and love to dear old Santa Claus! May his stay in our land be
long, and his pack grow every year more plethoric! And when, throughout
the broad earth, he shall find, on Christmas night, an entrance into
every home, and every heart throbbing with joyful gratitude at the
return of the blessed day that gave the Christ-child to a sinful world,
the reign of the Prince of Peace shall have begun below; everywhere
there shall be rendered, “Glory to God in the highest,” and “Good-will
to men” shall be the universal law--we shall all have _become as little
children_.