New Homes for Old Part 11

The problem of the immigrant parent with regard to the education of his child is more difficult because of the change in the position of the child in this country, which he usually does not understand. At home the child was important, not as an individual, but as a member of the family group, and home decisions about the child took into account the needs of the family in the first place and only secondarily the welfare of the child.[45]

This reversal of emphasis is confusing to the immigrant parents. Taken in connection with the fact that many of the immigrants are from countries where education is not compulsory, it leads them to sacrifice the welfare of the child at many points. It seems of much greater importance, for example, that the work of the household should be done than the child should get to school every day. The study of the reasons for absence in two of the immigrant neighborhoods of Chicago[46] shows the frequency with which children are kept out of school because of the needs of the family. Thus, of 1,115 children who were absent from school during a certain period 131 were out to do work at home; 81 were kept at home because of sickness in the family; 42 stayed home to interpret or run errands.

One boy, for example, was kept to watch fires for a sick father while his mother "got a day's work"; another had stayed at home because his sister's baby was in convulsions and his mother had not been able to get him ready to go to school; John was staying at home because his mother had gone to see a doctor and wanted him to look after the children, who did not like to go to the day nursery; Bruno, aged twelve, was found at home helping his mother wash, but he explained that he had really stayed out to go "to tell the boss" that his father was sick; Genevieve, aged twelve, who had been absent fourteen half days and tardy twice within a month, was found alternately tending the shop and taking care of three younger children and of a sick mother, although her father was well able to hire some one to come in and help care for the family while the little girl was at school.

In the rural districts the failure to understand the necessity of complying with the compulsory education law is even more marked. In the Rolling Prairie group of Polish families many of the children were not sent to school until after two families had been fined for not sending them. There was the expense for clothes and books, and the extra work for the mother. The roads were bad, the children often had no shoes, even in winter, and, above all, the parents had no understanding of why they should go. After the prosecution, however, the school law was obeyed.

The parents' att.i.tude toward the problem of keeping the child in school comes out quite navely in the answers given to visitors for this study. The following comments, given in the quaint but forceful English of our foreign-speaking investigators, show what is meant:

Mother (a Russian woman with three children) visited school when teacher demanded her to send daughter to school when she wished her at home to help.

Mother (a Polish woman with six children under fourteen) feels that children study too much and ought to help their parents more.

Father (Italian) thinks there should be laws for protection of parents as well as child labor.

FOLLOWING SCHOOL PROGRESS

Following the child's progress at school is a difficult matter for parents who themselves have not had the benefit of education, or even for those who have been educated under a different system. It is, however, not impossible for them to do so; by means of reports in the language they can understand, by talking to the teachers or some one of the school authorities who knows about the child's work, they can keep closely enough in touch with his school record to enable them to give help at the point where it is most needed.

Many of them do this in spite of the inherent difficulties and in spite of difficulties which the school itself puts in their way. An Italian father in a little Illinois mining town brought out with pride the last report of his little girl and showed the visitor that she had an average of 90 per cent. In the families studied in Chicago a few were evidently trying to keep in touch with their children's schooling. Thus of one family it is said:

"Mother not only goes to school entertainments, but follows up the children's work with the teachers, consults them, and accepts their advice." This family is Bohemian, and both mother and father are well-educated leaders in progressive Bohemian circles in Chicago.

In another Bohemian family the parents were also making an effort in this direction, but, being less well equipped, their difficulties were greater. The schedule says:

Mother never visits school as she cannot understand English.

Parents are very much concerned about their boy who brought a poor mark from school. After family consultation, daughter visited teacher, who advised them to take the boy out of Bohemian school (a nationalistic school to which he went after school hours), because he might be overworked.

These are, however, exceptional cases in the families studied. Among the Bohemians and Slovaks, to be sure, a considerable proportion of the mothers visited the school occasionally or knew some of the children's teachers. Among the families of the more recent immigrants it was almost unheard of for the parents to visit the school. Of the eleven Russian families studied not one reported any visits to the school or contact with the teachers, and only two of the Ukrainian families. One of these visited only when the children did not behave.

This mother said that she thought she should know more about her children's school work, but that she had felt so much in the way when she visited the school that she finally stopped going.

An almost inevitable consequence of this failure to make contacts with the school is that the parents remain quite unaware of what their children are learning there. An attempt was made in our study of selected families to get the parents' opinion of the work the children were given at school, but very few parents felt they knew enough about the work to express an opinion. A few to whom reference has already been made thought the children gave too much time to study and not enough to helping their parents, one or two spoke of the lack of discipline, a few others thought the schooling must be all right as the children learned to speak English. A Ukrainian mother of two children, the oldest eight, "believes that it must be good, for the children speak English and the oldest girl can read and write."

Sometimes the failure to understand what the children are doing brings unnecessary worry. A Hungarian mother, speaking of the education of her children, expressed regret that they were not taught carpentry.

The visitor turned to the eleven-year-old boy and asked him if he didn't have manual training. He replied that he did, but "she doesn't understand."

A careful study of the answers to the questions in our attempt to get parents' att.i.tude toward the children's schooling shows, then, that while a few exceptional parents have been able to follow their children's schooling, the great majority of them have not. It suggests that some of them are willing and ready to do it if only some of the obstacles were removed, and that there are also a large number who do not realize the necessity of it, and for whom something more must be done. The opportunity of the school, and various devices for rendering aid at this point, that have been tried, will be discussed in a later chapter.

The failure of the parents to understand not only means confusion and worry for them, but for the child lack of the help and sympathy at home that they might have. It becomes more serious as the child reaches the age when he is no longer compelled by law to attend school, and the decision as to whether or not he shall go on rests with his parents. When the parents have not known about the work he has been doing, and have no means of judging how much or how little he has learned, they are obviously in no position to make a decision about his further education.

There are many forces at work to influence the immigrant parent to put the child to work at once. There is, first of all, in many cases, economic pressure. Sometimes the child's earnings are actually needed to make up the family budget for current expenditures. In some families, however, his earnings are not so much needed as desired, to help in buying property more often than for any other reason. In these cases it seems clear that the att.i.tude toward the child as a means of contributing to the welfare or prestige of the family is a very important factor. One Polish doctor with whom we conferred emphasized this point. He said that the Polish parent expected to stop work at an early age and live on the earnings of his children. Hence he took his children out of school as soon as the law allowed, and had them start work.

Another factor that undoubtedly plays an important part is the parent's own lack of education. Never having had any opportunity for more than the most elementary education, it is only natural that it should seem that a child who had spent seven years in school should be fairly well educated. This att.i.tude is strengthened if he has succeeded without education or if the people whom he looks upon as successful have had little education. He is further confirmed in this att.i.tude very often by his failure to realize the extent of the change in conditions and the ever-increasing complexity of the situation with which his child will have to deal. Thus he often fails to understand that an education that was quite adequate for the simple life in the old country is far from sufficient for life in this country to-day.

Some of the people with whom we conferred were of the opinion that many of the parents from groups oppressed in Europe failed to realize the full significance of the freedom here. There the higher positions and the professions had been closed to them on account of race or cla.s.s, and many of them were not aware that here they would be open to their children if they could give them the necessary education and training.

There are, fortunately, forces at work to counteract this tendency to take the children out of school at the earliest possible moment. There is, too, among the foreign born, a very general desire to have their children do office work rather than manual labor, and an understanding that this means more than a grammar-school education. There is a certain nave faith in the benefits of education even though they are not understood. This is particularly strong in people to whom the schools have been closed by a dominant race in Europe--the Jews from Russia, for example. And in proportion as the parents become educated so that they feel their own limitations, they appreciate education for their children and strive to give it to them. There is no doubt that all these influences are felt in the foreign-born groups, but they win out gradually against the force of the traditions by which the parent is guided in his decision to take the child out of school.

The American community could hasten their action by helping the foreign-born parents to understand. There have been some attempts to enlighten the parents. The work of the Vocational Guidance Bureau in Chicago should be mentioned in this connection. When a child wants to leave school to go to work they explain to the parents the importance of keeping the child in school, and suggest means by which this can be done. This happens, however, only after the decision and plans have been made to put the child to work. The bureau has been handicapped in dealing with foreign-born parents by its lack of foreign-speaking visitors.

An attempt of a different order has been made to reach the Bohemian farmers in Nebraska. A professor in the state university has for a number of years gone out to these farming communities, urging in public speeches given in Bohemian the necessity of higher education for the children, and especially for the girls.

THE REVOLT OF OLDER CHILDREN

The problem of the older boy and girl is by far the most difficult of the parents' problems. Reference has already been made to the fact that it is as the child grows older that the difficulties of maintaining the old system of parental authority become more apparent.

It is at this time that the child sees that system is out of date, and then, if ever, he rebels against it. There is considerable evidence that the parents, on the other hand, feel the importance of maintaining their authority at that period of the child's life more than at any other. There are several reasons for this, among the more important being the fact that the child has reached an age when he can be economically helpful to the family group, and that the parents see dangers in his path. In other words, the maintenance of parental authority seems to be tied up with the control of the child's earnings and the maintenance of certain conventions regarding the a.s.sociation between young people of different s.e.xes.[47]

The immigrant parent very generally a.s.serts his legal right to the entire earnings of his minor child. In fact, the child often continues the practice of giving up his wages until his marriage. Out of forty-three families studied, in which there were children of working age, thirty-five parents took the entire earnings of the children. The amount that the parent should give back to the child is not fixed by law or by custom, and it is at this point that conflict between the child and the parents is likely to arise.

The parents frequently expect to continue to provide for the boy and the girl of working age as they did when they were younger, and to recognize their maturity only by giving them small sums weekly for spending money. In the case of girls even this slight concession is not made, and the girl has to ask her mother for everything she wants.

In only four of the thirty-five families in which the children turned in all their earnings was an allowance of as much as $3 a week given.

In the others the working child was given 25 cents, 50 cents, or 75 cents a week, usually on Sunday, or was given no fixed sum but "what he needs." In a Slovak family a girl of sixteen earning $13 a week, and one of fourteen earning $9 a week, were each given 50 cents each pay day; a boy of fifteen in a Slovenian family, earning $15 a week, received 50 cents on Sunday; two Slovak girls of eighteen and sixteen years, earning $45 and $80 a month, turned in all their earnings and got back "what they asked for."

It is not surprising that a boy or girl should chafe under the system even if the resentment stopped short of open rebellion. In the families studied in which there was no evidence of friction it seems to have been avoided either by such a firm establishment of the authority of the parents while the child was young, that the child had not yet questioned it, or by wise use of the child's earnings for the benefit of the child. In several instances it was reported that they gave the child "all she asks"; one girl was being given lessons on the violin, which she specially desired. In these cases the issue did not appear to have been raised, but we have no reason for thinking the children were satisfied with the arrangement.

In other families the beginnings of friction could already be seen. A Russian woman said that her two working girls, aged seventeen and fourteen, did not need money, and in the presence of the investigator refused the request of one for money for a picture show, telling her that men would pay her way. The eight parents who did not take all their children's earnings had not all changed their practices voluntarily. In some cases it was done because the children refused any longer to turn their earnings in.

When the parent takes the entire earnings of the child and continues to bear the burden of support, there is probably no question on which the ideas of the child and those of the parent are so likely to conflict as on the question of clothes, especially clothes for the girl. The chaotic and unstandardized condition of the whole clothing problem has been pointed out in an earlier chapter, and attention has been called to the fact that it is one of the causes of conflict between parent and child.

It is only natural that the young girl should want to look as well as possible, and it is to be expected that the girl of foreign-born parents should quickly learn at school or at work the prevailing opinion that to be well dressed is to be dressed in the latest fashion. She is also in a position to observe how quickly the fashions change, and thus early learns the unimportance of quality in modern clothing. She undoubtedly underestimates its importance because her models are not those on display at the highest-grade department stores, where the beauty of the quality occasionally redeems in slight measure the grotesqueness of form; she sees only the cheap imitations displayed in the stores in her own neighborhood.

In her main contention that if she is to keep up with the fashions she need not buy clothing that will last more than one season, she is probably right. It is natural also that this method of buying should be distressing to her mother, who has been accustomed to clothes of unchanging fashions which were judged entirely by their quality. When to her normal distress at buying goods of poor quality at any price there is added an outrage to her native thrift, because the price of these tawdry fashionable goods is actually greater than for goods of better quality, it is not surprising that she and her daughter should clash on the question of what to buy.

The question of shoes is said to be a special point of conflict. The girls insist on costly high-heeled, light-colored boots, while the mother sees that she could buy at less than half the price better shoes, more sensible, and of better quality. The conflict is more acute in proportion as the mother has lived an isolated life in this country and has not herself tried to keep up with American fashions.

It is interesting to note that workers in the Vocational Guidance Bureau in Chicago state that this desire of the girls for expensive clothes is a leading motive in causing them to leave school to go to work.

RELATIONS OF BOYS AND GIRLS

The most serious of the problems in connection with the older boy and girl is that of the relations between the s.e.xes. In the old country the situation was much more easily defined. The conventions were fixed, and had changed very little since the mother was young. In Italy, for example, daughters never went out with young men, not even after they were engaged. The same is said to be true in most of the other countries from which our immigrants have come. In Croatia, Serbia, and Bohemia it is unheard of for a young woman to go out alone with a young man.

Moreover, coming as so many of these people do from small villages or rural communities, they have been used to a single-group life which is impossible in a city. As one Italian woman has expressed it, work and recreation went hand in hand in the old country. During the day there was the work of both men and women in the fields in congenial groups, and in the evenings songs and dancing in the village streets. The whole family worked and played together with other family groups.

It is not intended to a.s.sert that there were no problems with young people in the old country, for undoubtedly there, as everywhere, some of the young would be wayward and indifferent to the conventions. The point is that there the mother knew what standards she was to maintain and had, moreover, the backing of a h.o.m.ogeneous group to help her. In this country not only is she herself a stranger, uncertain of herself, not sure whether to try to maintain the standards of her home or those that seem to prevail here, but the community of which she is a part is far from being a h.o.m.ogeneous group and has apparently conflicting standards. The immigrant mother, then, has to decide in the first place what standards she will try to maintain.

The old standards can scarcely be maintained in a modern community where the girls go to work in factories, working side by side with men, going and coming home in the company of men. It is manifestly impossible for the mother to watch her daughter at work. In the old country this was possible as long as she stayed on the farm. And when at school and at work she is constantly thrown with men, it is impossible to regulate her social hours by the old standards and to see that they are all spent under her mother's eye. Moreover, any attempt to do so is likely to provoke resentment, as a girl naturally thinks that if she can take care of herself at work she is equally well able to do so at play.

Furthermore, the character of the recreation has undergone almost as great a change as the character of the work. With the change from the country to the city, it has already been suggested that the old group life with its simple pleasures, which the whole family shared, has become impossible. If the mother then tries to see that her daughter has social life in which she herself may share, she either cuts her off from most of the normal pleasures of young people of her age, or the mother finds herself in places where she is not wanted, and where no provision has been made for her entertainment.

Most immigrant parents, except those from southern Italy, recognize the impossibility of maintaining the old rules of chaperonage and guardianship of the girls. One of the Slovak women with whom we conferred said that in all her circle of acquaintance there was only one mother who was attempting to bring her daughter up by the old standards and was not allowing her to go places in the evening where the mother might not accompany her. All the others were allowing their daughters more freedom than they thought desirable, but they did not know what else to do.

The Italian parents, on the other hand, try to guard their girls almost as closely as they did in Italy. It is not especially to be wondered at, for what the immigrant father or mother sees is usually the worst in American city life. If the daughter could not be trusted alone or unchaperoned in a village in which they knew most of the people and all the places of amus.e.m.e.nt, is she any more safe in a city in which, as one foreign-born mother says, "You don't know what is around the corner from you"?

Moreover, realizing only the danger to the girl, and not being able in his ignorance to explain to her or to protect her in any other way, the father often resorts to beating the girl to enforce the obedience which generations have taught him is due to him. The head of the Complaint Department of the Cook County Juvenile Court in Chicago said that while cases of immorality were very rare among Italian girls, the attention of the court was called to a great many who rebelled at this attempt at seclusion and ran away from home, often contracting hasty and ill-advised marriages.

While most parents of other nationalities see that the old standards cannot be maintained, there is a great deal of confusion as to what standards are to be considered right. This is ill.u.s.trated by the following incident. A very intelligent Jugo-Slav woman, in discussing the problem, said that she did not know what she would do in her own family, as she hated to think of her girls adopting American standards. The matter had been brought to her attention recently by the conduct of two girls with a young Serbian officer who was visiting in this country. As he walked up one of the boulevards two girls, who were utter strangers to him, had flourished small feather dusters in his face by way of salutation. This woman was very much surprised to hear that the investigator disapproved of this; she had supposed it was just our "American freedom."