The Child at HomeBy Elizabeth McCracken(See page 90)
By Elizabeth McCracken
(See page 90)
In one of the letters of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, to her mother, Queen Victoria, she writes: “I try to give my children in their home what I hadin my childhood’s home. As well as I am able, I copy what you did.”
There is something essentially British in this point of view. The English mother, whatever her rank, tried to give her children in their home what she had in her childhood’s home; as well as she is able, she copies what her mother did. The conditions in her life may be entirely different from those of her mother, her children may be unlike herself in disposition; yet she holds to tradition in regard to their upbringing; she tries to make their home a reproduction of her mother’s home.
The American mother, whatever her station, does the exact opposite—she attempts to bestow upon her children what she did not possess; and she makes an effort to imitate as little as possible what her mother did.... Her ambition is to train her children, not after the mother’s way, but in accordance with “the most approved method”. This is apt, on analysis, to turn out to be merely the reverse of her mother’s procedure.