Mother Problems by Martha E. Warner

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 16, 1915

Mother Problems

By Martha E. Warner

MARTHA E. WARNER

Teasing

FRANK came to spend a few weeks at Jack’s home. After Jack had shown him all around the place, he was heard to say: “Now, Frank, you will like this home, and you will like my mamma; but it will not do you any good to tease. When I used to ask my very own mother for anything, and she said, ‘No,’ I just teased till I got it. I tried it with this mamma, and it didn’t work. When she says, ‘No,’ she means no; and when she says, ‘Yes,’ she means yes. You can tease all day, but it won’t do any good. You just remember that, and you will get along all right.”

Not a hard lesson for any child to learn, if the mother will take the time to teach it. And once learned, it is not soon forgotten.

An Allowance

A mother expressed the wish that her daughter knew how to buy economically; yet that mother does not realize that it is her own fault her daughter knows so little about spending money.

I have found it a satisfactory plan to give children an allowance, small at first, but to be depended on. Out of it they were required to supply themselves with some little thing, such as pencils or handkerchiefs. They were taught to tithe the allowance, but the matter of offerings was left wholly to them. In a little book they kept account of money received and spent, and in this way obtained their first lessons in bookkeeping. As they grew older, and the allowance was increased, they were taught to buy their own clothes.

Such training may often tax the time and patience of mothers, but it will be of untold advantage to children in the years to come.

Manners in Public

Eight or ten girls were on the trolley one day, laughing, talking, screaming, chewing gum, and waving to the men on the streets.

“A Sunday school class going to The Rock for a good time,” some one remarked.

As I looked, my first thought was to blame the girls; my second, that the girls were publishing, as upon a housetop, the utter lack of good form in the homes from which they had tumbled pell-mell, without that instruction and those fixed habits which would have insured decorum and decency.

Begin when the children are small to teach them how to conduct themselves in public. Teach them that loud talking and laughter, which might pass uncriticized in the home yard or in the open country, must never be indulged in on the street car or the public street. The moment the street is reached, the deportment should be quiet.

Nowhere does good breeding reveal itself more quickly than in the quiet, unobtrusive “I-am-minding-my-own-business” air of a girl or boy in public.

Clintonville, Conn.