Part 29 (1/2)

Let's have the corners of your mouth turned up tonight at the supper table; be part of the family, Dad, not a poor, tired bread winner.

We don't want to hear any more sh--sh--or whispers when you come home.

We don't want to feel that restraint and uncomfortable feeling; let's laugh and sing and love and play--let's make your home-coming a joyous event.

We all love you, Dad, but you haven't made it as comfortable as you might for us when we try to express our love. You've been too tired, too busy, too much occupied with those business thoughts.

Don't you see how we love you, and how we appreciate you? Don't you know that there is no one in the world who can take the place of Dad?

Keep your heart young, Dad; we will help if you only say ”come on.” We are waiting for the signal. Let's start the new schedule tonight; come on, Dad, what do you say?

CRYING BABIES

When They Cry There's a Reason; Find It

Now come the wise doctors with the injunction to let the baby cry. They tell us it's good for the baby's lungs and that the baby needs the exercise and all that sort of rot.

They augment this with the statement that if we soothe or coddle our babies they will get the habit and require our attention always before they go to sleep.

Old Mother Nature has been pretty successful in raising animals. Let the kitten, dog, pig or chicken give the sign of pain or distress and the mother will hasten to its offspring and nestle it.

When a baby cries, it's because it's hungry, or too warm or too hot or too uncomfortable, or it has pain or distress. It's just nature's instinct given by G.o.d to the helpless infant that it may call attention to its trouble. The doctor would complain if uncomfortable. The doctor or the parent can help himself, but the baby can use its only signal, a cry.

When baby cries it should be taken up and soothed. Don't pay any attention to the doctor who says the baby cries to be petted; baby can't reason in its infant days; its little brain hasn't reached the reasoning powers.

Doctors constantly protest and warn us against over exertion on the part of children and even adults; yet they tell us to let the few-weeks-old baby cry, which is the most violent and extreme exertion it can put forth.

Crying puts a strain on all the baby's vital organs and its delicate, fragile blood vessels and heart. There have been thousands of babies who have had irreparable damage done to their const.i.tutions because of this cold-blooded, heartless fad of the doctors, to let baby cry.

Many a mother's heart is torn and wrung because of the doctor's order, ”Let the baby cry.”

The mother is worked up into an excited nervous condition by the doctor's inhuman order to let the baby cry, and this same doctor tells her not to become excited because it will have a bad effect on her nursing baby. Just read this paragraph over again and see if the doctor hasn't crossed his logic wires and insulted common sense.

The doctors become calloused; they are used to seeing pain and suffering. It's easy for them to endure pain in others, and easy for them to give them heartless orders.

And generally the doctor who affects most knowledge about baby rearing is the one who has no babies of his own.

Dr. Walls of Chicago is one of the most eminent child specialists in the world and he agrees with my conclusions in this matter and so does most every really great child specialist I know.

When baby cries, find the reason; change its position; see if there is a pin sticking; find out whether it's heat, cold, hunger or pain.

There's a reason why babies cry. My wife is emphatic on that point and she has reared three mighty fine babies, and I have watched and helped her.

GIRL

Be a Know Girl, Not a Show Girl