Concerning Children Part 9

"But, my dear, you said that before. I understand. Now do not say it again."

To say, "Yes, dear," a dozen times to the same question or statement is not strengthening to the child's mental habits. Similarly, when a child asks palpably foolish questions,--foolish by his own standard,--he needs not consideration, but mild ridicule. And, if he can answer his own question, let him: it is no kindness to do all his work. Children are not benefited by a too soft and yielding environment, nor do they always love best those who treat them with too much consideration. Fairness, not severity nor constant concession, is what a child appreciates. If we behave fairly to the child (as we would to a grown person), giving to him the healthy reaction of common justice, we help him to live easily and rightly in the world before him.

Even love is open to measurement by results. The love we have for our children is not developed in us as a pleasurable exercise, but is distinctly for the child's benefit. "The maternal sacrifice" is what our scientific friends call it. In studying early forms of life, we find the mother sacrificing everything for the good of the young, from which we draw the general inference that it is for the good of the young to have the mother sacrifice everything. More discriminating study will show us a great difference in maternal methods. Where the mother's loss is the gain of the young, she cheerfully submits to it; but, where the young is not benefited by her loss, we do not find it.

The eggs of the hen are carefully brooded by the mother; the eggs of the frog are left floating on the water in suitable places. There is no special virtue in the hen's brooding or vice in the frog's neglect; the mother does what is necessary for the young. The mother-cat licks her little ones elaborately, and teaches them to make their toilettes similarly. The cow licks the calf for a while, but gives it no instructions in washing its ears with its paws.

The mother-love is essential to the best care of the young, and therefore it is given us. It is the main current of race preservation, and the basis of all other love-development on the higher grades. But it is not, therefore, an object of superst.i.tious veneration, and in itself invariably right. The surrender of the mother to the child is often flatly injurious, if carried to excess. To put it in the last extreme, suppose the mother so utterly sacrifices herself to the child as to break down and die. She then robs the child of its mother, which is an injury. Suppose she so sacrifices herself to the child as to cut off her own proper rest, recreation, and development. She thus gives the child an exhausted and inferior mother, which is an injury to him. There are cases, perhaps, where it might be a mother's duty to die for her child; but, in general, it is more advantageous to live for him. The "unselfish devotion" of the mother we laud to the skies, without stopping to consider its effect on the child. This error is connected with our primitive religious belief in the doctrine of sacrifice,--one of those early misconceptions of a great truth.

It is necessary for the good of humanity that the interests of the one be subordinate to the interests of the many, but it does not follow that an indiscriminate surrender of one's own interests always benefits society. On the contrary, a steady insistence on the rights of the individual is essential to the integrity of the social structure and its right workings. So it is necessary for the good of the child that the interests of the mother be subordinated to his interests, but it does not follow that her indiscriminate surrender of personal interests always benefits him. On the contrary, a too self-sacrificing mother tends to develope a selfish, short-sighted, low-grade personality in the growing life she seeks to benefit, where her honest maintenance of her own individual rights would have had a very healthy effect. Not what the child wishes, nor what the mother wishes, is the standard of measurement, but what is really beneficial to the child. If the mother is frankly and clearly unselfish in their daily intercourse, and then as frankly and clearly demands her own share of freedom and consideration, the child gets a fairer view of human rights than if he simply absorbs his mother as a natural victim.

Little Mary has a visitor. Her mother is most polite and entertaining, is with them when they desire it, and lets them alone when they prefer. Then her mother has a visitor. "Mary," she says, "I am to have company this week. I shall of course have to give a good deal of time and attention to my friend, as you did to Hattie when she was here.

So you must not feel badly if you do not see as much of mamma as usual."

There must be the previous polite conduct of mamma to point to. The childish mind needs frequent and conspicuous proof that mamma is forgetting herself for his pleasure; and then he should be rationally called upon to forget himself for her pleasure, when it is plainly fair and necessary.

The beautiful principles of kindergarten teaching are frequently misapplied in the too conciliatory and self-denying methods of the well-meaning mamma. Kindness, politeness, constant love, and all due consideration the child should have; but justice is as important to him as affection. It must always be remembered that the mother's love is not an end in itself, nor the expression of it a virtue in itself.

It is to be measured, like every other natural function, by its use.

When a child is reared in an atmosphere of unreasoning devotion and constant surrender, he grows up to expect it, and to carry a sense of grievance if he does not get it. The natural tendency of the mother to love her own young is strong in us,--the maternal pa.s.sion; but, like all pa.s.sions, it needs conscientious and rational restraint. The human soul has grown to such a stage of development that we are capable of loving and serving great numbers of people. The woman, who is still confined to the same range of interests which occupied her in the earliest grades of human life, inherits her share of this socially developed power of loving, and concentrates it all upon her own immediate family.

Like an ever-enlarging burning gla.s.s, still focussed upon one spot, the healthy, natural affection of the animal mother for its young has grown to what is really an immense social affection, too large for one family to profitably sustain. The child will get a far more just and healthful idea of human relation when he finds himself lifted and led on by a mother whose life has a purpose of its own, than when he finds himself encompa.s.sed and overwhelmed by a mother who has no other object or interest than himself.

The whole question has to be constantly measured by comparing it with the rest of life. Are our methods with children those which best fit men and women for doing their share to maintain and develope human life? Does not the most casual survey of life to-day show people practising much amiability and devotion at home, strenuously loving their own immediate families and friends, and most markedly deficient in that general love for one another which is not only the main commandment of our religion, but the plainest necessity for social progress? And is not this deficiency to be accounted for, not by any inability on our part for social devotion,--for every day's list of accidents shows the common fund of heroism and self-sacrifice to be large,--but by the training which makes it the habit of our lives to love and serve only those nearest to us?

The mother is the strongest formative influence in the child's life.

If he sees that she thinks only of him, lives only for him, what is he to learn by it? To think only of himself? Or only of her? Or only of his children? Does the best care of a child require the concentrated and unremittent devotion of an entire mother?

A larger intelligence applied to the subject may show us that there are better ways of serving our children than those we now follow. The woman who grows up in the practice of considering the needs of people in general, and of so ordering her life as to benefit them, will find a new power and quality in her love for her own dear ones. With that widening of the soul-range of the mother will come a capacity to judge the child as one of the people of the world, besides being her own especially beloved. A study of what all children need will help her to understand what her own child needs far more accurately than when she thinks of him as the only one. The continuous application of the mother to the child is not so advantageous as the quality of her companionship and influence, and her sacrificial devotion too often weakens his sense of justice and makes him selfish.

XI.

SIX MOTHERS.

Broad-minded mothers of this time are keenly interested in child-study, in that all too familiar and yet unknown field of "infant psychology." They are beginning to recognise not only the salient fact that "all children are different," but the equally important one that all children have points in common.

The need of union and discussion among mothers is resulting in the mothers' clubs and parents' congresses, which form so n.o.ble an example of the progressive thought.

But so far, with all the kindly interest and keen desire for improved methods of child-culture, the mother has to return and grapple with her individual problem alone.

Here are one or two simple and practical suggestions, the careful pursuance of which, with some clear record of proceedings, would not only be of immediate a.s.sistance to the mothers concerned, but to all the other mothers yet to be aroused to the importance of such action.

Let us suppose six mothers, to take a very low number,--six mothers in one town, one village, or one city, even in the open country, so that they could reach each other easily; six mothers, who were friends and "social equals," and who were willing to admit the deficiencies of our general present methods of child-culture, and also willing to improve those methods. It is permissible for each mother to imagine that her own methods are superior to those of the other mothers, as this will give her a beautiful sense of helpfulness in allowing these superior methods to be observed and studied by the less able.

A conscious sense of inferiority is also no obstacle, for a mother having that feeling would be eager to improve by study of the better ways.

These six mothers divide the working days of the week among them, agreeing that each shall on her chosen day take charge of the children of the other five. This might be for a part of the day or the whole day, as is thought best,--let us suppose it merely for the afternoon; and it could be limited, as desired, to children of a certain age, and still further reduced, as a mild beginning, to one child apiece from each family.

This would give, as a minimum, five extra children on one afternoon a week to each mother. The maximum would be of course uncertain; but, if all the children of each mother were thus to go visiting for any part of the day, it would give to each one day in which that larger responsibility was undertaken, and five days free. There would remain Sunday, in which each family, complete, would be at home.

Now let us take a hypothetical case, and suppose that our six mothers, with considerable trepidation, have chosen one child apiece that they were willing to intrust for the afternoon to the watchful care of these familiar friends. The children, be it rigidly insisted, are to know nothing whatever of the purposes or methods involved. All that little Johnny Black knows is that Mrs. White has asked him to come over on Monday afternoon and play with Alice and Billy White, and some other children that he knows, too; that presently Mrs. Green has them come to her house on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown on Wednesday; that his mamma lets them all come and play with him on Thursday,--in short, that his afternoons have become full and rich and pleasantly exciting, like some wonderful procession of parties.

"Not like regular parties, either," Johnny would explain. "You don't have to dress up--much,--just be clean, to begin with. And they don't have ice-cream and macaroons,--only just milk and crackers when you get hungry; and--well, 'tisn't so much regular games and p'r'aps dancin'--like a party,--we just play. And Mrs. White, or whichever one 'tis, she generally has some nice young lady in with her; and they sort of keep things going,--as if 'twas a real party. It's nicer some ways, I think."

"And which place do you like best, Johnny?"

"Oh, I do' know! Billy White has the biggest yard. But Jim Grey has the best swing; and there's a pond at Susy Green's,--a real pond,--and nothing but girls live there! Then it's lots of fun when they come to our house, 'cause I can show 'em my rabbits and make Jack do all his tricks."

Yes, the children all enjoy it. It means variety, it means company, it means a wider and closer acquaintance and all the benefits of well-chosen a.s.sociation and larger environment. It fills a part of the day. There is no more aimless asking, "What shall I do now?" with the vague response, "Oh, run away and play!" or the suggestion of some well-worn amus.e.m.e.nt.

It means, too, a little more sense of "company manners" and behaviour, and, on the other hand, a better appreciation of home life.

And to the mother,--what good will this do her?

Each mother would have one day in the week in which to carefully observe children,--_not_ her own specially beloved children, but just children, as such. Her observation and care should be absolutely un.o.btrusive: the moment the little ones knew they were being watched, the value of the plan would be greatly impaired; and, to stop at a minor detail, from the palpable necessity for doing this work without the child's consciousness, mothers would learn to cover the machinery of government at home. It is one of our grossest and most frequent errors in the management of children that we openly discuss our efforts and failures. They know that we are struggling to produce certain results in their behaviour, usually in a futile manner.

With, however, a large and definite purpose resting so absolutely on the child's unconsciousness, more wisdom in this line would soon develope.

The mother who now says, "What would you do with a child like that?"

or "I'm sure I don't know what to do with that child!" before the child in question, would soon perceive that such an att.i.tude in an educator does not produce confidence in the object of the education.

Quietly and unostentatiously, and often with the a.s.sistance of some keen girl-friend, these mothers would soon learn to observe accurately, to generalise carefully, to reduce cautiously, and then to put the deduction into practice and observe the results.

As beginners, pioneers, they should make their first steps very modestly. For the first season some one trait should be chosen for study,--say self-control or courage or consideration of others. Having decided on their line of observation, let each mother make a little note of how high each child in the group stands in this line.

How much self-control has my Johnny, as measured by his age?--as compared with others of his age? When did I first notice self-control in Johnny? When have I seen it greatest? Does he gain in it? What should be done to help Johnny gain in self-control? And then go over the same questions with regard to the other children.

Then, with self-control as the characteristic, the natural development and best education of which they wish to study, the afternoon parties begin. At first the children might be left absolutely free to play in ordinary lines. Then, after the first observations were recorded, delicate experiments could be introduced, and their results added to the record.

It is very difficult for the individual mother to rightly estimate her own children. "Every crow thinks her babe the blackest."

Yet the character of the child is forming without regard to any fond prejudice or too severe criticism; and his life's happiness depends on his interaction with people in general, not simply with beloved ones at home. The measure of Johnny's self-control may not seem important to the parental love which covers or the parental force which compels; but to Johnny's after-life its importance is pre-eminent. When one sits for a portrait to a fond and familiar friend, and sees all fondness and familiarity die out from the eyes of the artist, feels one's personality sink into a ma.s.s of "values," it brings a strange sense of chill remoteness. So, no doubt, to the mother heart the idea of calmly estimating Johnny's self-control and comparing it with Jim Grey's seems cold enough. To have Mrs. Grey estimate it,--and perhaps (terrible thought!) to estimate it as less than Jim's,--this is hard, indeed.

Yet this is precisely what is to be obtained in such a combination as this, and in no other way,--the value of an outside observer, through Mrs. Grey's estimate.

n.o.body's opinion alters facts. The relative virtues of Johnny and Jim remain unchanged, no matter what their respective mothers think or what their irrespective mothers think. But each mother will derive invaluable side-lights from the other mother's point of view.

Each opinion must be backed with ill.u.s.tration. Instances of observed behaviour must be ma.s.sed before any judgment has value.

"I think your Jim is so brave, Mrs. Grey. When the children were with me the other day, the cow got loose; and the girls all ran. Some boys ran, too; and Jimmy drove her back into the cow-yard."

"But Jimmy was the oldest," says Mrs. White. "Perhaps, if he'd been as young as my Billy, he wouldn't have been so brave."

"And he is afraid of the dark," says Mrs. Brown. "At my house he wouldn't go into the back cellar after apples, even with the other children. Isn't he afraid of the dark, Mrs. Grey?"

Mrs. Grey admits this, but cites instances to show courage in other directions. And always five dispa.s.sionate observers to the one deeply loving and prejudiced.