Chapter XIX Childhood
While it is possibly true that the most potent molding influences may be exerted prior to the birth of the child, yet where parents have lacked the intelligence to avail themselves of the largest and best results in this respect, or discover defects after their children are born, there still remains an opportunity for them. They can in some measure retrieve lost opportunities, correct defects, supply deficiencies, and even accomplish wonderful results in the training and development of their children. “As the twig is bent the tree is inclined.” If the twig is crooked, if taken very early it may be straightened; but it is far better that the twig should be straight at first, and without the necessity of being straightened. It is better that children should be born without defects, rather than that there should be the necessity of correcting these mistakes; but as a straight twig may be bent to its permanent and incurable injury, so a child, properly nurtured and well-born, may be injured or totally ruined, mentally, morally or physically, by deficient or defective training during its childhood.
There are many excellent books upon the nurture and training of children, and young parents would do well to avail themselves of the advantages and excellent suggestions afforded by such publications. There are also many excellent periodicals for young parents, such as “The New Crusade,” “Trained Motherhood,” “The Mothers’ Journal,” and others, which are very valuable and almost indispensable. From such books and periodicals young parents can obtain the best of suggestions with regard to the early care, proper nurture and careful training of their little ones. We cannot now dwell upon any of the many important phases of child-training. Space only affords opportunity to emphasize some things which seem to us of special importance and likely to be overlooked.
Many young parents think that the training of their children will be a matter for consideration when they are three or four years old. No more serious mistake can possibly be made. The first three months will determine the babyhood, and the first two years the childhood, and the childhood will determine the manhood or womanhood. The first two years may almost be said to determine both the character and the destiny of the child for all time to come. The child that is not properly taught during the first two years is likely to remain untaught, undisciplined, uncontrolled, and oftentimes uncontrollable, for the remainder of its childhood and throughout its entire life.
The questions of the hours of feeding, the hours for sleep; whether the child is to be rocked, or carried when it whimpers—all these are questions of the utmost importance from the very beginning. Many a mother has been enslaved for life because of the mistakes which she made during the first few weeks after her child was born.
Parents should protect their children against the silly and dangerous habit of being promiscuously kissed. The prevalent custom of kissing babies and children is not only silly upon the part of those who do it, but a nuisance to the child, and in many instances detrimental to the health of the child. Where promiscuous kissing is allowed, persons with offensive breath, consumptive tendencies, contagious and even loathsome diseases, may unintentionally inflict irreparable wrong upon both the child and its parents. Only the other day we read in a medical journal where a young child of poor parents who kept a boarding-house was kissed by one of the boarders, who communicated to the child one of the most loathsome of diseases. Such dangers exist not only among the poor, but are perhaps even more prevalent among the affluent, in the circle of whose acquaintances there is likely to be some well-dressed but vicious and corrupt individual.
Let no care or proper expense be spared in making the influences which are exerted in the nursery both attractive and potent. Young parents should be their children’s best playfellows. There should be a proper amount of games, carefully-selected amusements, books, papers, pictures chosen with scrupulous care, and mother and mother’s influence in the midst of them all. What the child needs pre-eminently above playthings, books, clothes, and every other earthly thing, is the presence and influence of mother. No other woman in the world can take her place. Many mothers farm their children out to nurses, and then give themselves to household duties, social pleasures, or possibly to duties which may be important in themselves, but which, after all, can only be secondary to the discharge of the all-important duties of motherhood.
Many otherwise excellent women find the nursery a prison, and the care of their own children irksome, simply because they have a perverted mother-sense. The mother should have proper relief from the care of her children, but if she has the true mother-heart the companionship of her children will be the society which she will prefer above that of all others.
Where servants are necessary, and such cases do exist, parents should exercise the utmost caution in guarding the purity of their children. Hundreds, and we can properly say thousands, of children are annually wronged and ruined by the vices practiced upon them by servants. This is an especial danger where nurses and servants are permitted to undress the child and put it to bed at night. Many a nurse who is anxious to quiet her little charge, that it may fall asleep promptly, is guilty of exciting sensations which quiet the child and prevent its crying, but which inflict upon the nervous system of an infant results of the most far-reaching character. Mothers are very apt to be unsuspecting in these matters, and therefore it is highly important that the attention of fathers should be called to this grave danger.
The child should also be protected against being frightened, being made afraid in the dark, told of spooks, bugaboos, “the old beggar-man” and the police coming for them. Remember, also, that in this most impressible period of character-formation servants and others can do the child great injury by teaching it to be deceitful and untruthful. It is at this age, also, that they learn incorrect and ungrammatical forms of expression; and if the nurse-girl is ignorant and silly, and is permitted to assemble upon the streets or in the park, with others of her age, while tending the child, a bright child of two or three years will pick up more coarseness and more undesirable information concerning human depravity than can be expunged from its mind by subsequent months and years of careful training.
It is important to enjoin upon parents the duty of guarding their children against secret vice. Parents are very apt to think that while other children might be guilty of such sins, their own children are “too innocent and too pure” to fall into such vices. We have known mothers to hold up their hands in holy horror at such a suggestion, but when the more cautious fathers have watched their children, they have discovered that even at the age of five and six their little boys have learned from older playmates, impure companions, degraded servants, or by sliding down the balustrade, or in some other incidental way, the terrible habit of self-pollution. Young children cannot be too carefully guarded in this important matter. Where infants exhibit a tendency to handle their private parts, great care should be given to the cleanliness of those parts, and, if continued, the family physician should be consulted, to see whether circumcision is not necessary to remove local irritation and inflammation. This is found to be necessary in many instances. Circumcision was an important sanitary regulation among the Israelites, is a simple surgical operation which is most beneficial in its results, and very important in many instances.
When your children are old enough to ask honest questions, see that, in reply, they receive an honest answer. If a child is intelligent and thoughtful, one of the earliest inquiries will be concerning the origin of life. When a little one is born into your own or another household, it is only natural and proper that intelligent children should inquire where it came from. There should be no fables about babies being brought by doctors, or being found under cabbage-leaves, or taken from hollow stumps in the woods, for an intelligent and altogether satisfactory answer can be given to an intelligent child of six or seven years, and even younger. Another has aptly and truthfully said: “Ignorance is a deadly sin. The truth properly told has never yet harmed a child; silence, false modesty and mystery have corrupted the souls and bodies of untold millions.” Where parents are intelligent upon this subject, and know how to present these matters properly to the thought of their children, we have never heard of a child who asked an embarrassing question, nor have we known of anything but the most satisfactory and blessed results. Parents will find beautiful and helpful suggestions in “Teaching Truth” and “Child Confidence Rewarded,” two booklets by Mary Wood-Allen, M.D.; and it was also to aid parents in these matters that “What a Young Boy Ought to Know” and “What a Young Girl Ought to Know” were written. Parents should read these books and learn how to communicate the information, either in conversation or by reading to the child such portions as are suited to its needs. Remember that the disposition which prompts your child to keep an unclean thing a secret from you will also incline the child to refrain from conversation upon a pure matter which is to be a secret between parent and child. If you allow others to teach your child sacred truths in an unhallowed way, if you decline to give your children an honest answer to their honest and reasonable inquiries, they will secure in its degrading form, from vicious companions or ignorant servants, the information they seek. It is infinitely easier to keep the mind of the child pure than to purify it after it has been polluted. When corrupting thoughts and degrading pictures have been painted upon the canvas of the mind, they can never be totally obliterated.
When your child approaches the age of puberty, the little boy becomes awkward, his voice breaks, the down starts upon his upper lip, he becomes bashful and shrinking. At that trying period, when so many take special pleasure in taunting and tantalizing—at that period of special stress when the boy and the girl pre-eminently need tenderness—see to it that your children are protected against the wrongs to which others are subjected. This is the period in the life of the boy and the girl when they are not able to understand themselves or to interpret life to their own satisfaction, and then it is that they should be made intelligent upon the conditions which attend the transition from childhood, and indicate the approach of manhood and womanhood. It is then that the books in the series for boys and girls will be found especially indispensable, and in due time, according to the judgment of the parents, should be followed by the book addressed to young men or to young women.
Look carefully after the education of your children. Remember that the picture-book, the nursery-song, the evening prayer, the family music, the walk, the ride, the hasty word, the thoughtful counsel, are all helping to educate your child. Know what books they read. Be sure that in the public schools they sit under the instruction of no one who insinuates doubt or destroys the careful and sacred instruction of the home. When evening comes and evil lurks for the destruction of the young, gather your children about you in your home. Make home attractive to them. Let it be the centre and source of that which is to inspire them to noble manhood and exalted womanhood. Regard nothing as expensive which will contribute to make your children pure and good and great.
That your children may be guarded against the errors which come from sleeping with other children, neither at home nor elsewhere should they share their beds with others.
Look well to the physical culture of your children. If physical culture has no place in your school, see that the attention of directors and teachers is called to this important matter. Encourage your children to use the gymnasium of the Young Men’s Christian Association, or some other organization that similarly maintains the strictest purity and the highest moral standards. Teach or have your children taught those forms of gymnastics that require no appurtenances; supply them with a pair of dumb-bells weighing a pound or two each. Furnish the nursery with some Exerciser of approved pattern, with preference for one which can be adjusted to the needs of either adults or children. Encourage them in out-of-door sports; see that their sleeping-rooms are well ventilated; encourage them to desire to be strong and well. Teach them to govern their appetites; regulate their lives so as to secure the best health and the best physical and intellectual powers.
In the culture of the intellectual and the physical do not forget the moral training of your children. Among the books and the papers, see that there is a good supply of those of a religious character. Teach your children to want right things, and to have pleasure in doing good. Make a faithful use of the Sunday-school and of the Church. Let their place in the family pew from early childhood be regularly filled; provide them with a hymnbook, see that they have something for the collection, teach them to be reverent. If, in early life, your children are religiously inclined, do not make the fatal mistake of standing between them and their union with the Church. Do not say: “Oh! they are too young fully to understand what it all means.” Who is old enough to understand all the mysteries of Divine grace? It is enough for us to know that Jesus welcomes and saves the children, as well as older people. Polycarp was converted at nine years of age; Matthew Henry at eleven; President Edwards at seven; Dr. Watts at nine; Bishop Hall at seven, and Robert Hall at twelve.
And now we have come to the place where author and reader must part. Taking your hand in a final grasp, we can only look into your face and assure you that if, as a young husband, you rightly estimate the sacredness of marriage; if you bring to it that purity, honor and sanctity which you rightly expect upon the part of your wife; if you rightly use its privileges, and are ready to exercise such personal restraints as shall secure to both parties the largest present pleasure and permanent happiness, you will then obtain the benediction and blessings which marriage and home and parentage have to bestow.
The End