Part 17 (1/2)
As the heart of a child naturally begins developing before the soul feelings, let us talk about that first. And when we speak about the ”heart,” it is, of course, understood that we are not referring to the physical organ which pumps blood, but to that part of human nature which responds to affection and sympathy.
The heart of a child--what a mysterious, wonderful, sensitive, beautiful thing it is! How much it gives and how much it is capable of receiving!
And the one thing it wants most--the one it craves and hungers for, as an essential of its nourishment and growth--is love, tender, devoted, unfailing love. From the earliest babyhood, straight on to the years of maturity, and still on, that is the greatest need of the human heart for its full and happy growth.
In early childhood, where is it to get that tender, devoted love, if not from its mother? Will it get it from a well-paid nurse or governess, whether Swede or Irish, French or English? In the vast majority of cases, the nurse or governess hasn't it to give. Love is something which can't be bought with money. Many a governess is a discontented person, who thinks she is worthy of better things. Many a nurse is thick-skinned and bad-tempered. A large proportion of both have much more tender feeling for their wages and their selfish interests, than they have for the child entrusted to their care. Should anything different be expected? It is not their child. In a few months, or a few years, it will pa.s.s out entirely from their existence.
Plenty of people can be hired to take care of your child's body and its physical needs--nurses, governesses, doctors; plenty of people can look after the education of its intellect; nurses, teachers, tutors, professors--but no one can be employed to take your place in feeding it devoted love, because that love is G.o.d-given and G.o.d has not given it to the others, but has given it to you.
The mother who turns over the heart life of her child to the keeping of a paid employee is guilty of a vital neglect. If later on, it should happen that the child proves lacking in affection, sympathy, consideration for others, and fails to fulfill the mother's fond aspirations, in that respect, she has herself to blame, first of all.
If this simple truth could be brought home to every modern mother, it might prove very helpful to the next generation.
It is not difficult to suggest how the affections find nourishment and development. And remember we are not yet considering the moral feelings, but only the heart.
Love begets love; love is largely mutual; love thrives on the companions.h.i.+p of the loved ones.
The tenderness, sympathy, devotion of a mother, very surely and quickly open out the heart feelings of her child and meet with warm response.
The more constant the companions.h.i.+p, the more constant the outpouring of affection on both sides, the more that side of the child nature grows.
And the more it grows,--with mother watching over it, helping and guiding, setting the example--the more it has to give to other people and things. It will love a doll, a kitten, a puppy dog, and show them the same sort of tender attention that it receives from mother. It will feel sorry for a poor little bird with a broken wing; it will feel sorry for father, when he comes home tired with a headache; it will put its arms about father's neck and want to kiss the headache away.
As it grows older, it should be allowed to feel, and made to feel, that mother's love and father's love will never desert it--that that love may be counted on, as a mainstay of life, through thick and thin, fair weather and foul, to the very end. This should not be left as a matter of uncertainty, or wonder, or doubt. No mother should ever say to a child, or allow it to imagine, that if it should be naughty or bad, or do this, that or the other, mother would cease to love it, or father would cease to love it. Such an idea is poisonous to the true feeling and conception of love, which should be cherished in every child by every mother. Mother should take pains to make the child feel,--and she should take pains to make father do so, too,--that no matter what it does, their love for it will never weaken or waver. It is not enough to a.s.sume that this will be taken for granted--it should be confided to the child, at opportune moments, as the most sacred of secrets, the holiest of promises. And no time is more opportune for the telling of it--no time means more or counts more--than one of those moments when the child has done wrong and is troubled in its conscience, and feels ashamed and forsaken. That is a splendid occasion, for a mother's love and a father's love to prove themselves, by making doubly plain that although they, too, may feel ashamed, the strength and warmth of their love is undiminished.
With nourishment and care of this kind the heart nature of a child is almost sure to grow and thrive. Its love will feel the influence of the big love it receives and want to respond in kind. In due time, it may say to itself, and confide as a holy secret to mother, that its feeling for her and father will never change, either, no matter what happens, to the end of time.
As regards consideration for others, with the constant help and guidance and example of a devoted mother, this can be made to grow and thrive, too, until it becomes a beautiful and sensitive part of second nature.
With such feelings nourished and cherished in this way, there is ground for hope that one of a parent's sweetest and most fundamental aspirations, in regard to the off-spring, will not be disappointed. The heart will be in the right place.
Now, on the other hand, it is only too easy to see what may happen and what does frequently happen, if this sacred responsibility of a mother is neglected.
Suppose the child is left, for the greater part of the time, day in and day out, to the companions.h.i.+p and care of a hired subst.i.tute, a nurse or governess? In the first place, the subst.i.tute is very apt to have no love at all, or what little it has, may be a very thin and shoddy variety. Frequently a nurse is unsympathetic, irritable, and selfish.
That does not provide either good nourishment, or good example, for the tender heart feelings.
When a child does wrong, the nurse scolds it and displays an ill-feeling which is the very contrary of tenderness and affection. That is bad enough, but it is not half so bad as the fact that this same repellent treatment is very often accorded a child when it has not done wrong at all, but has merely obeyed some spontaneous and beautiful impulse of its little nature, which an irritable nurse does not bother to understand.
The way that a nurse wishes a child to go is not usually prompted by any loving consideration for the heart feelings of the child, but a very selfish consideration for the convenience and prejudices of the nurse.
I have known many cases where the sensitive feelings of a little boy or girl have been turned to violent dislike by a nurse, or a governess. For days and weeks and months they have been obliged to live in the constant companions.h.i.+p and under the constant influence of an antipathy which sours and freezes their affections. I have known cases where a nurse, in order to achieve her own ends and relieve herself of trouble, has told a child to lie quietly in bed, when the light goes out, or a big and horrible bugaboo will creep out of the darkness and spring upon it. In such cases, the nurse takes good care to keep the child from giving a hint of this to mother or father, under pain of equally terrifying consequences. I have friends to-day, grown up men and women, who cannot go into a dark room, anywhere, without a s.h.i.+ver and shudder of nameless dread, which began with that same black bugaboo.
I have known countless cases, where a nurse has said to a child, who has done something wrong or annoying: ”I don't love you any more. I don't like you now at all.” And I have known countless cases where mothers, themselves, have said and acted the same thing. And the effect of that is to belittle and corrupt in the child's heart a bigger and deeper conception of love, as a loyal and steadfast thing, with no string attached to it. If a nurse, or a mother, can withdraw her love, for a slight cause, then a child when it grows up can expect to do the same; a wife can withdraw her love from her husband, if he does something to displease her; a husband from his wife; a son and a daughter from their parents; a sister from her brother. How sad that seems, at first, and how it hurts! But little by little, as one sees and learns, and as the twig is bent--do not many up-to-date young people adapt themselves very comfortably to that belittled conception of love? Do not the divorce courts and remarriages and scattered children and the talk and acts of emanc.i.p.ated women give ample evidence of it?
How glibly a certain kind of woman talks about sons and daughters lacking affection, and being so selfish, and so inconsiderate of others!
How many of those women have taken the trouble to consider whether the heart feelings of those sons and daughters were nourished and cherished and guided, by the devotion of a loving mother?
This is a woefully inadequate sketch of one of the most important elements of life, one of the most vital factors in the formation of human character, about which volumes might be written. It may be enough, however, to suggest reflection and a better understanding on the part of some mothers, well-intentioned, but confused by progressive theories, who are really in need of help.
We may now move on to the moral and spiritual feelings.
The most casual observer has no difficulty in noting the fact that most children to-day are lacking in discipline, obedience, respect, consideration for others, and many other qualities, which have been regarded as essential to a well-bred person. There has been no end of talk about it lately, as we know.