THE IDEAL MOTHER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 17.

THE IDEAL MOTHER.

The ideal mother never threatens her children; she does not like to imply a doubt of the prompt obedience she expects.

The ideal mother has plenty of faith. She does not believe that her twelve-year-old school-girl, who hurries away undisturbed by any haunting memories of the untidy bedroom she has left behind, or with easy unconsciousness of the places on her boots where buttons should be and are not, is necessarily going to be a life-long slattern; or that the mischievous baby who persists, in the face of the most obvious evidence, that he “didn't touch the milk jug, it 'pilled itself,'” is congenitally deficient in sense of honor.

The ideal mother has a just perception of relative values. In this complex civilization of ours, every mistress of a household, whatever her social position, must choose between many conflicting claims on her time. But whether it be social duties that try to crowd out the children entirely, or exhausting labor for their material needs that leaves no time for their moral and intellectual guidance, the ideal mother remembers that she is first of all a mother.

She is never too busy or too tired to hear the story of the day's school troubles, to admire and criticize the six-legged pig or triangular man submitted by budding genius, to pity rather than to reproach when clumsy little fingers have wrought mischief with intent to “help,” to answer questions by carefully chosen explanations instead of by impatient formulas that repress inquiry.

The ideal mother remembers her own childhood, and the faulty perspective in which it saw the world around it. Often, therefore, she gives sympathy where the unthinking see only cause for laughter, encouragement where the sternly just would censure. —Anon.