Where Shall our Children Spend their Evenings?
It is not of the marriageable portion of society we wish to speak. We allude to those half way between childhood and youth, a great increasing host; too big to be put to bed out of the way at sundown, full of animal spirits, warm with social instincts, longing to entertain and be entertained, interested in a thousand things that are foolishness in the eyes of maturity—pictures, games, romps—it is to these we would call attention, for these we put in a plea, when we ask, “Where shall our young folks spend their evenings?” “Not in my parlor, I assure you,” exclaims Mrs. Fusabout. “I’m not going to have my young folks taking a crowd in there to soil, deface, and destroy—not I, indeed! And as to having them here where I am, I could n’t stand that no way; they would drive me crazy in a week with their endless chatter.” “Mother can’t we go into the parlor?” We were two girls shivering in the damp air of an evening in September—two girls just budding into womanhood, that critical period when both soul and body need the tenderest care and vigilance. The woman addressed had come from the warmed and well-lighted church close by, and was ready to sleep on the sermon. Not so her daughter. That young brain was alive with busy fancies; no end of pleasant confidences were busy at her tongue’s tip to be transferred to the sympathizing heart beside her; her pulse throbbed high with youth and hope; she had no desire to shorten her days by a single hour. And what was her answer? “In the parlor, indeed! I think not! If it isn’t good enough for you out here on the steps, you can come in and go to bed.” Those poor young things had shivered there an entire evening; but what did it matter? Perchance many an after pain and ache, which should by right have recoiled upon the parent, reached the tender frame of her woman child. So the precious parlor remained undesecrated, what did it matter? It mattered much, O wives and mothers, so quick to wipe away the least suspicion of a cloud on your window-panes, so indifferent to the clouded eyes of your offspring; so indefatigable in keeping stains from carpet or curtains, so careless of the one that may have crept into the soul of son or daughter; whose nerves are steady under sound of poker, hammer, scrubbing-brush, and broom, and entirely upset by the patter of childish feet, a game of romps, a whistle, drum, or crying doll; who with washing, ironing, baking, carpet rags, canning, and all various duties of the notable housewife, can “litter up” a room from daylight until bedtime, and take genuine satisfaction in it, too, yet can not endure a stray hat or apron, or a few scattered toys. We say such things matter much, since every203species of injustice, however small or trivial, shielded under whatsoever pretense, will some day, most assuredly, recoil upon the perpetrators thereof. “I never have known any one who allowed their boys to occupy the parlor of an evening, or bring company in the house at all.” Such is the testimony of a lady who for several years has been a teacher in one of our public schools; and how many, many witnesses could set their seal thereto. Walk out any time before ten, on a pleasant evening, almost anywhere in our large cities, and you will see dozens of young girls, mere children, of the most respectable parentage, strolling around the streets, or sitting on the steps, for the purpose of enjoying those social privileges denied them in their homes. These either go to school or to work during the day. Then comes the long evening. Youth very naturally desires recreation and the companionship of their own age. If home is not really a home, but only a place where they are allowed to eat, drink, and sleep, what is left them but to take to the streets, fraternizing with others equally as unfortunate as themselves? Most people think boys take naturally to the streets; that is because they are not allowed to be boys in the house. With his mind always open to the wise and thoughtful supervision of parents whose law is love, a little roughing in the street never yet hurt a growing lad, but to leave him with no other recourse but stagnation or the street, is criminal. The days are growing short, the nights cold; and rosy, rollicking girls will be obliged to remain indoors, and only the boys be left out. We shall see them clustering with their cronies around the store-windows, in a circle about the street lamps, anywhere where light seems to impart something of warmth and good cheer; we shall see them slapping their numb hands together and dancing about to keep life in their half-frozen bodies. Bright, brave boys most of them are, too, yet we tremble for their future, since their very presence is a living testimony to the fact that parents are too many, fathers and mothers too few; that while we build and adorn too many houses, homes are too few. Fine furniture, overneatness, and nerves, put out the home fires of many a heart and hearth. We often feel like exclaiming, with some considerable change of the original text:— “That furniture should be so dear,
And these young souls so cheap?”
And we see no open door, no genial fireside, no home where our young folks, every one, can gather in, and spend their evenings, their gayety heightened, not checked, by the tender, sympathizing presence of older heads, until a condition of affairs so censurable no longer has tolerance inside of any four walls which a child calls home.—Christian at Work.