p. 12 | Like Father, Like Son; Like Mother, Like Daughter

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 28, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 42.

Like Father, Like Son; Like Mother, Like Daughter

By Western Humane Press Committee

When the father was a baby, he tormented the kitten; as a boy, he abused the dog; as larger boy, he bullied the smaller one; and as husband and father, he tyrannizes over wife and children. He has never learned to control his temper; he has never known what it was to protect the weak; he has never learned to regard the feelings of others. What can you expect of him now?

The child’s sense of justice is keen, and he knows when he is punished simply because father or mother is in a temper and must vent it upon something. Is it any wonder, then, that the child grows surly and resentful, that he learns readily to deceive, and the life of the father is repeated in the child?

Many a mother all unconsciously gives to her child his first lesson in cruelty. Baby is seated upon the rocking-horse, a whip placed in his little hands, and he is told, “Whip the old horse, and make him go.”

Katie is teasing the cat, and making her cry; and the mother says, “Don’t pull the pussy; she will scratch you.”

Tommy is pinching the dog to see him squirm; and mother says, “Don’t hurt Rover, Tommy; he might bite you.”

O, mother, do you realize that you are teaching your child that there is no harm in inflicting suffering upon anything provided he is not himself hurt by it?

Johnny starts to run across the room, trips over a chair, and bumps his nose on the floor. Johnny cries, and his mother says: “Naughty chair, to make Johnny hurt himself! Beat the old chair!” And she immediately proceeds to administer condign punishment to the unoffending chair. She is teaching the child that instead of controlling his temper, he must give full vent to it, and that if he is hurt, instead of bearing it like a man, he must revenge himself upon something, whether innocent or guilty. What will be the result of such a training?

A little four-year-old toddler was pulling at his mother’s skirts and teasing her to play with him. “O, don’t bother me now,” said the mother; “run away and chase the old lame hen round the garden.” And the little one ran off eagerly at the prospect of his fun.

Fifteen years later, when this same mother was enfeebled from sickness, she was bemoaning with wonder why it was possible that her boy, for whom she had done and sacrificed so much, should be so unfeeling in his treatment of her.

The seed she herself had planted and watered had sprung up and was bearing abundant fruit, and she did not even recognize that it was from her own sowing.— Western Humane Press Committee.