Parents and Children
Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.
“Little children and headaches—great children and heartaches” (Italian).115 Nevertheless, “He knows not what love is that has not children” (Italian).116
It is a wise child that knows his own father.
Happily, as a French sage remarks, “One is always somebody’s child, and that is a comfort.”117 “The child names the father; the mother knows him” (Livonian).
The mother knows best if the child be like the father.
The mither’s breath is aye sweet.—Scotch.
This proverb, which belongs exclusively to Scotland, appears to me even more “exquisitely graceful and tender” than that German and French proverb so justly admired by Dean Trench, “Mother’s truth keeps constant youth.”118 “There is no mother like the mother that bore us” (Spanish).119 “The child that gets a stepmother gets a stepfather also” (Danish).120
The crow thinks her own bird the fairest.
“Every mother’s child is handsome” (German).121 “No ape but swears he has the finest children” (German).122 “If our child squints, our neighbour’s child has a cast in both eyes” (Livonian).
As the old cock crows so crows the young; or,
As the old cock crows the young cock learns.
If the mare have a bald face the filly will have a blaze.
Trot feyther, trot mither, how can foal amble?—Scotch.
Children generally follow the example of their parents, but imitate their faults more surely than their virtues. Thus,—
A light-heeled mother makes a heavy-heeled daughter.
Unless the mother transfers a part of her household cares to the daughter, the latter will grow up in sloth and ignorance of good housewifery. “A tender-hearted mother rears a scabby daughter” (French, Italian).123
A child may have too much of its mother’s blessing.
Her foolish fondness may spoil it.
The worst store is a maid unbestowed.—Welsh.
“A house full of daughters is a cellar full of sour beer” (Dutch).124 Chaucer says,—
“He that hath more smocks than shirts in a bucking
Had need be a man of good forelooking.”
“Marry your son when you will, and your daughter when you can” (Spanish).125
My son is my son till he’s got him a wife;
My daughter’s my daughter all the days of her life.
This is a woman’s calculation. She knows that a son-in-law will submit to her sway more tamely than a daughter-in-law.
Little pitchers have long ears.
“What the child hears at the fire is soon known at the minster” (French).126
Children and fools tell truth.
And tell it when it were better left untold. “These terrible children!” (French.)127
Children and fools have merry lives.
They quickly forget past sorrows, and are careless of the future.
Children suck the mother when they are young, and the father when they are old.
Footnotes
115 Fanciulli piccioli, dolor di testa; fanciulli grandi, dolor di cuore.
116 Chi non ha figliuoli non sa che cosa sia amore.
117 On est toujours le fils de quelqu’un; cela console.
118 Muttertreu wird täglich neu. Tendresse maternelle toujours se renouvelle.
119 No hay tal madre como la que pare.
120 Det Barn der faaer Stivmoder, faaer ogsaa Stifvader.
121 Jeder Mutter Kind ist schön.
122 Kein Aff’, er schwört, er habe die schönsten Kinder.
123 Mère piteuse fait sa fille rogneuse. La madre pietosa fa la figliuola tignosa.
124 Een huis vol dochters is een kelder vol zuur bier.
125 Casa el hijo quando quisieres, y la hija quando pudieres.
126 Ce que l’enfant oit au foyer, est bientost connu jusqu’au monstier.
127 Ces enfants terribles!