Kitabı oku: «Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XXXI
A MOTHER'S DUTY
I CLOSE my volume of rambling sketches, with a chapter more didactic and serious. The duties of the housekeeper and mother, usually unite in the same person; but difficult and perplexing as is the former relation, how light and easy are all its claims compared with those of the latter. Among my readers are many mothers—Let us for a little while hold counsel together.
To the mind of a mother, who loves her children, no subject can have so deep an interest as that which has respect to the well being of her offspring. Young mothers, especially, feel the need, the great need of the hints and helps to be derived from others' experience. To them, the duty of rightly guiding, forming and developing the young mind is altogether a new one; at every step they feel their incompetence, and are troubled at their want of success. A young married friend, the mother of two active little boys, said to me, one day, earnestly,
"Oh! I think, sometimes, that I would give the world if I only could see clearly what was my duty towards my children. I try to guide them aright—I try to keep them from all improper influences—but rank weeds continually spring up with the flowers I have planted. How shall I extirpate these, without injuring the others?"
How many a young mother thus thinks and feels. It is indeed a great responsibility that rests upon her. With the most constant and careful attention, she will find the task of keeping out the weeds a hard one; but let her not become weary or discouraged. The enemy is ever seeking to sow tares amid her wheat, and he will do it if she sleep at her post. Constant care, good precept, and, above all, good example, will do much. The gardener whose eye is ever over, and whose hand is ever busy in his garden, accomplishes much; the measure of his success may be seen if the eye rest for but a moment on the garden of his neighbor, the sluggard. Even if a weed springs here and there, it is quickly plucked up, and never suffered to obstruct or weaken the growth of esculent plants. A mole may enter stealthily, marring the beauty of a flower-bed, and disturbing the roots of some garden-favorite, but through the careful husbandman's well set enclosure, no beasts find an entrance. So it will be with the watchful, conscientious mother. She will so fence around her children from external dangers and allurements, that destructive beasts will be kept out; and she will, at the same time cultivate the garden of their good affections, and extirpate the weeds, that her children may grow up in moral health and beauty.
All this can be done. But the right path must be seen before we can walk in it. Every mother feels as the one I have alluded to; but some, while they feel as deeply, have not the clear perceptions of what is right that others have. Much has been written on the subject of guiding and governing children—much that is good, and much that is of doubtful utility. I will here present, from the pen of an English lady, whose work has not, we believe, been re-printed in this country, a most excellent series of precepts. They deserve to be written in letters of gold, and hung up in every nursery. She says—
"The moment a child is born into the world, a mother's duties commence; and of all those which God has allotted to mortals, there are none so important as those which devolve upon a mother.
More feeble and helpless than any thing else of living creatures is an infant in the first days of its existence—unable to minister to its own wants, unable even to make those wants known: a feeble cry which indicates suffering, but not what or where the pain is, is all it can utter. But to meet this weakness and incapacity on the part of the infant, God has implanted in the heart of the mother a yearning affection to her offspring, so that she feels this almost inanimate being to be a part of herself, and every cry of pain acts as a dagger to her own heart.
And to humanity alone, of all the tribes of animated beings, has a power been given to nullify this feeling. Beast, bird, and insect, attend to the wants of their offspring, accordingly as those wants require much or little assiduity. But woman, if she will, can drug and stupefy this feeling. She can commit the charge of her child to dependants and servants, and need only to take care that enough is provided to meet that child's wants, but need not see herself that those wants are actually met.
But a woman who does this is far, very far, from doing her duty. Who is so fit to watch over the wants of infancy as she who gave that infant birth? Can a mother suppose, that if she can so stifle those sensibilities which prompt her to provide for the wants of her children, servants and dependants, in whom no such sensibilities exist, will be very solicitous about their charge? How many of the infant's cries will be unattended to, which would at once have made their way to the heart of a mother! and, therefore, how many of the child's wants will in consequence remain uncared for!
No one can understand so well the wants of a child as a mother—no one is ever so ready to meet those wants as she; and, therefore, to none but a mother, under ordinary circumstances, should the entire charge of a child be committed, And in all countries in which, luxury has not so far attained the ascendency, that in order to partake of its pleasures a mother will desert her offspring, the cares and trials of maternal love are entered upon as the sweetest of enjoyments and the greatest of pleasures. It was a noble saying of a queen of France, "that none should share with her the privileges of a mother;" and if the same sentiment found its way into every heart, a very different aspect would soon be produced. How many, through ill-treatment and neglect in childhood, carry the marks to their dying day in weak and sickly constitutions! how many more in a distorted body and crippled limbs! These are but the too sure consequences of the neglect of a mother, and, consequent upon that, the neglect of servants, who, feeling the child a burden, lessen their own trouble; and many a mother who, perhaps, now that her child has grown up, weeps bitter tears over his infirmities, might have saved his pain and her own sorrow by attending to his wants in infancy.
"Can a mother forget her sucking child?" asks the inspired penman, in a way that it would seem to be so great an anomaly as almost to amount to an impossibility. Yet modern luxury not only proves that such a thing can be done, but it is one even of common occurrence. But if done, surely some great stake must be pending—something on which life and property are concerned—that a mother can thus forget the child of her bosom? Alas! no; the child is neglected, that no interruption may take place in the mother's stream of pleasure. For the blandishments of the theatre, or the excitements of the dance, is a child left to the charge of those who have nothing of love for it—no sympathy for its sufferings, no joyousness in sharing in its pleasures.
A woman forfeits all claim to the sacred character of a mother if she abandon her offspring to the entire care of others: for ere she can do this, she must have stifled all the best feelings of her nature, and become "worse than the infidel"—for she gives freely to the stranger, and neglects her own.
Therefore should a woman, if she would fulfil her duty, make her child her first care. It is not necessary that her whole time should be spent in attending to its wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child's comfort and happiness. And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that welfare is best to be consulted: for to the natural feelings which prompt animals to provide for their offspring, to humanity is added the noble gift of reason; so that thought and solicitude are not merely the effects of blind instinct, but the produce of a higher and nobler faculty.
As we have already adverted to this point, we shall only say, that without a knowledge of how the physical wants of a child are to be met in the best manner, a mother cannot be said to be performing her duty; for the kindness which is bestowed may be but the result of natural feeling, which it would be far harder to resist than to fulfil; whereas the want of knowledge may have resulted from ignorance and idleness, and the loss of this knowledge will never be made up by natural kindness and love: it will be like trying to work without hands, or to see when the eyes are blinded.
But there is yet a higher duty devolving upon woman. She has to attend to the mental and moral wants of her offspring, as well as to the physical. And helpless as we are born into the world if reference be made to our physical wants, we are yet more helpless if reference be made to our mental and moral. We come into the world with evil passions, perverted faculties, and unholy dispositions: for let what will be said of the blandness and attractiveness of children, there are in those young hearts the seeds of evil; and it needs but that a note be taken of what passes in the every-day life of a child, to convince that all is not so amiable as at first sight appears, but that the heart hides dark deformity, headstrong passions, and vicious thoughts. And to a mother's lot it falls to be the instructress of her children—their guide and pattern, and she fails in her duty when she fails in either of these points. But it may be said, that the requirement is greater than humanity can perform, and that it would need angelic purity to be able fully to meet it; for who shall say that she is so perfect that no inconsistencies shall appear between what she teaches and what she practises?
It would be, indeed, to suppose mothers more than human to think that their instructions should be perfect. The best of mothers are liable to err, and the love a mother has for her child may tempt her frequently to pass over faults which she knows ought to be corrected. But making due allowance for human incompetency and human weakness, still will a mother be bound to the utmost of her power to be the instructress of her child, equally by the lesson she inculcates and the pattern she exhibits.
There is, indeed, too much neglect shown in the instruction of children. Mothers seem to think, that if amiable qualities are shown in the exterior, no instruction is necessary for the heart. But this is a most futile attempt to make children virtuous; it is like attempting to purify water half-way down the stream, and leaving it still foul at the source. The heart should be the first thing instructed; a motive and a reason should be given for every requirement—a motive and a reason should be given for every abstinence called for—and when the heart is made to love virtue, the actions will be those of virtue; for it is the heart which is the great mover of all actions—and the moment a child can distinguish between a smile and a frown, from that moment should instruction commence—an instruction suited indeed to infantine capacities, but which should be enlarged as the child's capacities expand. It is very bad policy to suffer the first years of a child's life to pass without instruction; for if good be not written on the mind, there is sure to be evil. It is a mother's duty to watch the expanding intellect of her child, and to suit her instructions accordingly: it is equally so to learn its disposition—to study its wishes, its hopes and its fears, and to direct, control, and point them to noble aims and ends.
Oh! not alone is it needful that a mother be solicitous for the health and happiness of her child on earth: a far higher and more important thought should engage her attention—concern for her child as an immortal and an accountable being.
To all who bear the endearing name of mother, thus would we speak:
That child with whom you are so fondly playing—whose happy and smiling countenance might serve for the representation of a cherub, and whose merry laugh rings joyously and free—yes! that blooming child, notwithstanding all these pleasing and attractive smiles, has a heart prone to evil. To you is it committed to be the teacher of that child; and on that teaching will mainly if not entirely depend its future happiness or misery; not of a few brief years—not of a life-time, but of eternity; for though a dying creature, it is still immortal, and the happiness or misery of that immortality depends upon your instruction.
Will you neglect or refuse to be your child's teacher? Shall the world and its pleasures draw off your attention from your duty when so much is at stake? or, will you leave your child to glean knowledge as best it can, thus imbibing all principles and all habits, most of them unwholesome, and many poisonous? You can decide—you, the mother. You gave it life, you may make that life a blessing or a curse, as you inculcate good or evil; for if through your neglect, or through bad example, you let evil passions obtain an ascendency, that child may grow into a dissolute and immoral man; his career may be one of debauchery and profaneness; and then, when he comes to die, in the agonies of remorse, in the delirium of a conscience-stricken spirit, he may gasp out his last breath with a curse on your head, for having given him life, but not a disposition to use it aright, so that his has been a life of shame and disgrace here, and will be one of misery hereafter. That child's character is yet untainted; with you that decision rests—his destiny is in your hands. He may have dispositions the most dark and foul—falseness, hatred and revenge; but you may prevent their growth. He may have dispositions the most bland and attractive; you can so order it that contact with the world shall never sully them. Yes, you—the mother—can prevent the evil and nurture the good. You can teach that child—you can rear it, discipline it. You can make your offspring so love you, that the memory of your piety shall prevent their wickedness, and the hallowed recollection of your goodness stimulate their own.
And equally in your power is it to neglect your child. By suffering pleasure to lure you—by following the follies of fashion, or by the charm of those baubles which the world presents to the eye, but keeps from your grasp—you may neglect your child. But you have neglected a plain and positive duty—a duty which is engraven on your heart and wound into your nature: and a duty neglected is sure, sooner or later, to come back again as an avenger to punish; while, on the other hand, a duty performed to the best of the ability returns back to the performer laden with a blessing.
But it may be said, how are children to be trained in order that happiness may be the result?
It is quite impossible to lay down rules for the management of children; since those which would serve for guidance in regulating the conduct of one child, would work the worst results when applied to another. But we mention a few particulars.
The grand secret in the management of children is to treat them as reasonable beings. We see that they are governed by hope, fear, and love: these feelings, then, should be made the instruments by which their education is conducted. Whenever it is possible (and it is very rarely that it is not), a reason should be given for every requirement, and a motive for the undertaking any task: this would lead the child to see that nothing was demanded out of caprice or whim, but that it was a requirement involving happiness as well as duty.
This method would also teach the child to reverence and respect the parent. She would be regarded as possessed of superior knowledge; and he would the more readily undertake demands for which he could see no reason, from a knowledge that no commands of which he understood the design were ever unreasonable.
The manner of behaving to children should be one of kindness, though marked by decision of character. An over fondness should never allow a mother to gratify her child in any thing unreasonable; and after having once refused a request—which she should not do hastily or unadvisedly—no coaxing or tears should divert her from her purpose; for if she gives way, the child will at once understand that he has a power over his mother, and will resort to the same expedient whenever occasion may require; and a worse evil than this is, that respect for the parent will be lost, and the child, in place of yielding readily to her wishes, will try means of trick and evasion to elude them.
In order to really manage a child well, a mother should become a child herself; she should enter into its hopes and fears, and share its joys and sorrows; she should bend down her mind to that of her offspring, so as to be pleased with all those trivial actions which give it pleasure, and to sorrow over those which bring it pain. This would secure a love firm and ardent, and at the same time lasting; for as a child advanced in strength of intellect, so might the mother, until the child grew old enough to understand the ties which bound them; and then, by making him a friend, she would bind him to her for life.
There are none of the human race so sagacious and keensighted as children: they seem to understand intuitively a person's disposition, and they quickly notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies of conduct. On this point should particular attention be paid, that there be nothing practised to cheat the child. Underhand means are frequently resorted to, to persuade a child to perform or abstain from some particular duty or object; but in a very short time it will be found out, and the child has been taught a lesson in deception which it will not fail to use when occasion requires.
And under this head might be included all that petty species of deceit used towards children, whether to mislead their apprehension, or to divert their attention. If any thing be improper for a child to know or do, better tell him so at once, than resort to an underhand expedient. If a reason can be given for requiring the abstinence; it should; but if not tell the child that the reason is such that he could not comprehend it, and he will remain satisfied. But if trick or scheming be resorted to, the child will have learned the two improper lessons of first being cunning, and then telling a falsehood to avoid it.
In whatever way you wish to act upon a child, always propose the highest and noblest motive—this will generally be a motive which centres in God. Thus, in teaching a child to speak the truth, it should be proposed not so much out of obedience to parents, as out of obedience to God; and in all requirements the love and fear of God should be prominently set forth.
A child is born with feelings of religion; and if these feelings are properly called forth, the actions will generally have a tendency to good. Thus, with a child whose disposition is to deceive, a mother has no hold upon such an one; for the child will soon perceive that his mother cannot follow him every where, and that he can commit with impunity many actions of deceit. But, impress the child with the truth that a Being is watching these actions, and that though done with the greatest cunning, they cannot be committed with impunity, and it is more than probable that they will never be committed at all. A temptation may be thrown in the way of such a child, but it will not be powerful enough to overcome the feeling that the action is watched. That child may eagerly pant to perform the forbidden action, or to partake of the forbidden pleasure; but he will not be able to rid himself of the feeling that it cannot be done without being observed. He will stand in a state of anxiety, and steal a glance around, in order to see the Being he feels is looking upon him, and every breeze that murmurs will be a voice to chide him, and every leaf that whistles will seem a footstep, and never will he be able to break the restraint; for wherever he goes and whatever he does, he will feel that his actions are watched by one who will punish the bad and reward the good.
And in the same way might this be applied to all dispositions and feelings. How cheering is it to a timid child to be told that at no time is he left alone: but that the Being who made every thing preserves and keeps every thing, and that nothing can happen but by his permission! This is to disarm fear of its terrors, and to implant a confidence in the mind, for the child will feel that while his actions are good he is under the protection of an Almighty Parent. In the same way, in stimulating a child to the performance of a duty, the end proposed should be the favour of God. This would insure the duty being entered upon with a right spirit—not merely for the sake of show and effect, but springing from the heart and the mind—and, at the same time, it would prevent any thing of hypocrisy. If it were only the estimation of the world which was to be regarded, a child could soon understand that the applause would be gained by the mere exterior performance, be the motive what it might: but when the motive is centered in God, it is readily understood that the feeling must be genuine; otherwise, whatever the world may say, God will look upon it as unworthy and base. We believe it would be found to work the best results, if all the actions of a child were made thus to depend upon their harmony with the will of God; for it would give a sacredness to every action, make every motive a high and holy one, and harmonise the thoughts of the heart with the actions of the life.
But in this mode of teaching, it is essentially necessary that a mother should herself be an example of the truth she teaches. It will be worse than useless to teach a child that God is always at hand, 'and spieth out all our ways,' if she act as though she did not believe in the existence of a Deity.
In the same way will it hold good of every requirement. It will be vain to teach a child that lying is a great crime in God's sight, when a mother in her own words shows no regard to truth; and equally so of all other passions and feelings. It is idle to teach a child that pride—hatred—revenge—anger, are unholy passions, if a mother's own conduct displays either of them. How useless is it to teach that vanity should never be indulged in, when a mother delights in display! Such instruction as this is like the web of Penelope—unpicked as fast as done. The greatest reverence is due to a child; and previously to becoming a teacher, a mother should learn this hardest of all lessons—'Know thyself.' Without this, the instruction she gives her children will at best prove very imperfect. It is quite useless to teach children to reverence any thing, when a mother's conduct shows that, practically at least, she has no belief in the truths she inculcates. And a very hard requirement this is: but it is a requirement absolutely necessary, if education is meant to be any thing more than nominal. The finest lesson on the beauty of truth is enforced by a mother never herself saying what is false; for children pay great regard to consistency, and very soon detect any discrepancies between that which is taught and that which is practised.
The best method of inculcating truth on the minds of children is by analogy and illustration. They cannot follow an argument, though they readily understand a comparison: and, by a judicious arrangement, every thing, either animate or inanimate, might be made to become a teacher. What lesson on industry would be so likely to be instructive as that gathered from a bee-hive? The longest dissertation on the evils of idleness and the advantages of industry would not prove half so beneficial as directing the observation to the movements of the bee—that ever-active insect, which, without the aid of reason, exercises prudence and foresight, and provides against the wants of winter. A child will readily understand such instruction as this, and will blush to be found spending precious hours in idleness. And in the same way with other duties, whether to God or mankind, the fowls of the air and the flowers of the field might be made profitable teachers, and the child would, wherever he went, be surrounded with instruction.
This mode of teaching has this special recommendation—it raises up no evil passions: and a child which would display an evil temper by being reproved in words, will feel no such rancor at a lesson being inculcated in a way like this.
This instruction will also be much longer remembered than one delivered in words, forasmuch as the object upon which the instruction is based would be continually presented to the eye.
And, we believe, almost all duties might be inculcated in this manner. Thus, humility by the lily, patience by the spider, affection by the dove, love to parents by the stork,—all might be rendered teachers, and in a way never to be forgotten. And that this mode of teaching is the best, we have the example of Christ himself, who almost invariably enforced his instructions by an allusion to some created thing. What, for instance, was so likely to teach men dependence upon God as a reference to the 'ravens and the lilies,' which without the aid of reason had their wants cared for? And in the same way with children—what is so likely to teach them their duties, as a reference to the varied things in nature with whose uses and habits they are well acquainted?
God should be the object upon which the child's thoughts are taught to dwell—for the minds even of children turn to the beautiful, and the beautiful is the Divine. All thoughts and actions should be raised to this standard; and the child would raise above the feelings of self-gratification and vanity, and the panting for applause, to the favor and love of God. Thus should religion be the great and the first thing taught; and a mother should be careful that neither in her own actions, nor in the motives she holds out to her children, should there be any thing inimical or contrary to religion.
And by this course the best and happiest results may be expected to follow. The perverse and headstrong passions of the human heart are so many, that numerous instructions may seem to be useless, and a mother may have often to sigh over her child as she sees him allowing evil habits to obtain the mastery, or unholy dispositions to reign in his heart; but, as we have before said, we do not think that the instruction will be lost, but that a time will come when she will reap the fruits of her toil, care and anxiety.
Such then is the duty of woman as a mother—to tend and watch over the wants of her child, to guard it in health, to nurse it in sickness, to be solicitous for it in all the changes of life, and to prevent, as much as possible, those many ills to which flesh is heir from assailing her fondly cherished offspring.
It is also her province to instruct her children in those duties which will fall to their lot both as reasonable and as immortal creatures; and by so doing she will make her own life happy—leave to her children a happy heritage on earth, and a prospect of a higher one in heaven. But if a mother neglect her duty, she will reap the fruits of her own negligence in the ingratitude of her children—an ingratitude which will bring a double pain to her, from the thought that her own neglect was the cause of its growth, as an eagle with an arrow in his heart might be supposed to feel an agony above that of pain on seeing the shaft now draining its life's blood feathered from its own wing.
Mrs. Child, in her excellent "Mother's Book," a volume that should be in the hands of every woman who has assumed the responsibilities of a parent, gives some valuable suggestions on the subject of governing children. I make a single extract and with it close my present rambling work. She says:
"Some children, from errors in early management, get possessed with the idea that they may have every thing. They even tease for things it would be impossible to give them. A child properly managed will seldom ask twice for what you have once told him he should not have. But if you have the care of one who has acquired this habit, the best way to cure him of it is never to give him what he asks for, whether his request is proper or not; but at the same time be careful to give him such things as he likes, (provided they are proper for him,) when he does not ask for them. This will soon break him of the habit of teasing.
"I have said much in praise of gentleness. I cannot say too much. Its effects are beyond calculation, both on the affections and the understanding. The victims of oppression and abuse are generally stupid, as well as selfish and hard-hearted. How can we wonder at it? They are all the time excited to evil passions, and nobody encourages what is good in them. We might as well expect flowers to grow amid the cold and storm of winter.
"But gentleness, important as it is, is not all that is required in education. There should be united with it firmness—great firmness. Commands should be reasonable, and given in perfect kindness; but once given, it should be known that they must be obeyed. I heard a lady once say, 'For my part, I cannot be so very strict with my children. I love them too much to punish them every time they disobey me.' I will relate a scene which took place in her family. She had but one domestic, and at the time to which I allude, she was very busy preparing for company. Her children knew by experience that when she was in a hurry she would indulge them in any thing for the sake of having them out of the way. George began, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie.' The answer was, 'It is nearly bed-time; and mince-pie will hurt you. You shall have a piece of cake, if you will sit down and be still.' The boy ate his cake; and liking the system of being hired to sit still, he soon began again, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie.' The old answer was repeated. The child stood his ground, 'Mother, I want a piece of mince-pie—I want a piece—I want a piece,' was repeated incessantly. 'Will you leave off teasing, If I give you a piece?' 'Yes, I will—certain true,' A small piece was given, and soon devoured. With his mouth half full, he began again, 'I want another piece—I want another piece.' 'No, George; I shall not give you another mouthful. Go sit down, you naughty boy. You always act the worst when I am going to have company.' George continued his teasing; and at last said, 'If you don't give me another piece, I'll roar.' This threat not being attended to, he kept his word. Upon this, the mother seized him by the shoulder, shook him angrily, saying, 'Hold your tongue, you naughty boy!' 'I will if you will give me another piece of pie,' said he. Another small piece was given him, after he had promised that he certainly would not tease any more. As soon as he had eaten it, he, of course, began again; and with the additional threat, 'If you don't give me a piece, I will roar after the company comes, so loud that they can all hear me.' The end of all this was, that the boy had a sound whipping, was put to bed, and could not sleep all night, because the mince-pie made his stomach ache. What an accumulation of evils in this little scene! His health injured—his promises broken with impunity—his mother's promises broken—the knowledge gained that he could always vex her when she was in a hurry—and that he could gain what he would by teasing. He always acted upon the same plan afterward; for he only once in a while (when he made his mother very angry) got a whipping; but he was always sure to obtain what he asked for, if he teased her long enough. His mother told him the plain truth, when she said the mince-pie would hurt him; but he did not know whether it was the truth, or whether she only said it to put him off; for he knew that she did sometimes deceive. When she gave him the pie, he had reason to suppose it was not true it would hurt him—else why should a kind mother give it to her child? Had she told him that if he asked a second time, she would put him to bed directly—and had she kept her promise, in spite of entreaties—she would have saved him a whipping, and herself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. And who can calculate all the whippings, and all the trouble, she would have spared herself and him? I do not remember ever being in her house half a day without witnessing some scene of contention with the children.
