LIX.DIVIDED FAMILY GOVERNMENT.
“IHAVE a family of young children, naturally amiable and obedient, who, while very young, seldom needed even slight punishment; but as they grow older wants and wills are thickening, and, occasionally, natural perversity and willfulness are manifested which sometimes require restraint. The mother’s heart would shield her children from such denials or demands as the father sees is necessary to their proper education and future happiness. Her tenderness warps her judgment, and too frequently her speech and action stand opposed to mine. Hence the question must often arise, if she cannot control her words and feelings in the presence of the children and servants, how far am I bound, in view of the future well-being of our offspring, to push my authority, and, as the father and head of the house, insist upon her yielding to my judgment without such opposition; and if I am compelled peremptorily to insist upon her silence, when I am attempting to control our children, what is her duty?”
These questions, which have been addressed to us, are full of interest; and the answer, if given simply from the first impressions derived from the perusal of the letter, without mature deliberation, would seem comparatively easy. But afew moments’ careful reflection will suffice to show that, looked at in all the various aspects necessary to form a thoroughly correct judgment, it is a very intricate and important subject, for which no one general rule can be made to meet the necessities of all. The happiness of the family, as a whole, and the future welfare of the children, require a united government; but, unfortunately, we do not see it to any wide extent. Children, who should be a bond of union, are too often the cause of dissension and division. If the father is stern, arbitrary, and unreasonable in dealing with the little ones, a judicious mother, who has suffered for them and watched over them by day and by night from their birth, naturally shrinks from the effects which severity or irritability must have on their young and tender minds, knowing, in almost every case, that gentleness and love will soften the heart and secure obedience, while coldness and harshness will harden, and provoke rebellion.
Or, perhaps, on the other hand, the father is loving and tender, yet firm; fully aware that foolish and injudicious indulgence, although for the present gratifying, will in the end work out, not the peaceable fruits of righteousness, but, for the children, years of sin and sorrow; for the parents, wretchedness, tribulation, and anguish. With a father whose constant thought is to seek the best interest of his children, even though it can be obtained only at the expense of some self-denial, if the mother co-operates, the training of their family will be a labor full of love and gladness. When both parents see eye to eye, and seek God’s blessing on every step, they may rest assured that their children, thus led in the way they should go, will, in mature age, rise up and call them blessed.
It is very strange that parents, with so many examples which should on the one hand warn them against over-indulgence,and on the other encourage them in the administration of all needed discipline, should not learn to avoid disputes or discussion in the presence of their families. When they so far forget their children’s best interests as to wrangle and dispute whenever a case of discipline is necessary, and allow children and servants to hear and see the whole, they not only lose the respect of those who should naturally look to them for guidance and help, but, more than all, they do lasting injury to those whom they should protect and love. One or two specimens of divided counsels and the mischief is done. Children are quick to observe; they turn to the parent who they learn will be most ready to hide their faults or overlook their short-comings for help to escape punishment, or to secure the gratification of every childish whim; but they soon learn to care little for either parent, for the selfish love of a child who has lost respect and reverence for father or mother is of little value. If the father commands and the mother, openly or privately, cancels the injunction, or the mother permits an indulgence and the father revokes the permission, the child will soon become angry and stubborn; and even if not daring to utter reproach and insolence openly, the spirit of bitterness and revolt is aroused. If parents were seeking to destroy their children, they could scarcely find any means so well calculated to accomplish the object. But the mischief does not end here; the parents themselves become embittered by such dissensions. Sometimes it leads to disputes and quarrels, and sometimes to partisanship; and thus the child’s selfishness, jealousy, and mercenary nature are cultivated. In such divided households better far are early deaths than life and health for children that must otherwise grow up under such malign influences.
If parents cannot see alike, in matters of family government,then they should agree between themselves on some compromise; but in the presence of their children, these differences ought never to be mentioned. Even if one parent is mistaken, it is better far to pass the mistake by, unnoticed, than that a dispute should arise, or that the other parent should interfere in the presence of servants or children. In almost all such cases there is blame on both sides; but, right or wrong, it is better that one should yield instantly and let the other decide, for the time being, than to attempt to right the wrong in the presence of any one, particularly in that of children. It is not hard to do this; and, O parents! if you truly love each other, it should be very sweet and easy kindly and unselfishly to discuss the matter under consideration; but let the husband dismiss during the discussion all idea ofauthority. It is an ugly word between husband and wife at all times; and in the endeavor to settle a disputed point, if you seek for any good results, keep it as far out of sight as possible. Go to your wife in the same spirit that influenced you while wooing her, and speak with the same tenderness; we think words thus spoken will be like oil on the troubled waters, and bring you into closer and more harmonious union than anycommandscan do.
But while settling any disputed point with regard to the management of children, it should be constantly remembered by the father that, of necessity, the mother must have more to do with their early years, and can hardly fail to understand their peculiarities better than he can do. It is only a few moments at a time that the father can spend with them, while the mother must watch over them hourly, providing for all their constantly recurring wants. To her belongs, naturally, the care of their health and early habits; to her the watching and weariness in times of sickness, and the harassing toil of nursing them throughthe fretful period of convalescence, back to soundness and vigor.
In the few hours the father’s business allows him to spend with his family, he may be able to see the weak points more clearly than the mother can do, who must be always with them. He may see plainly how, at times, she weakly yields to their caprices, allowing herself to become a slave to them, often because too weary to be firm. This is the time when his love, tenderness, and sympathy for his wife, the mother of his children, should be most earnestly manifested; when he can prove which is the stronger, which better fitted to be the true head of the house. These weaknesses, from whatever cause they spring, should not be noticed before the little despots; when alone, the husband, with the greatest kindness and gentleness, can show his wife how such indulgence will lay the foundation for much present trouble, and perhaps for a corrupt and disgraceful future. If she has good sense, and he, with unselfish desire for the good of all, does not seek by arrogant dictation to set himself above her, we can hardly imagine a wife and mother who would not earnestly endeavor to make the necessity of such appeals very unfrequent.
But if the mother is frivolous and self-indulgent, too weak and indolent to take up the cross of refusing childish, unreasonable importunities, for the glory that shall crown her when, by her firmness, her children have become noble men and women,—then, God help her who can thus lay the ax to the root of all domestic happiness! For the husband and father to push his authority or command silence with the children at home, constantly exposed to such influences, can do no good; it only increases the difficulty. We know of no better or surer way to save the children than to remove them from home and a weak mother’s cruel indulgence, and place them in some school where health and morals may becarefully watched over, but one sufficiently strict to save them from the evils of too great indulgence. This is a hard task; but it has saved many children whose parents, either one or both, were too foolishly tender or too cruelly indolent to control them, as God has commanded, in their early years.