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Don't Fret

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 19, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 42, No. 10.

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Don't Fret.

By Mary Bolling

MARY BOLLING says: “Don't fret, whatever you do, and don't let your children fret. Fretfulness is a habit easily acquired, even when it is not naturally a part of one's disposition, by associating with fretful people.
“Everybody feels a tendency to it, at times, and if the desire is indulged, it gains strength very rapidly, and is a source of annoyance, even of unhappiness, not only to the fretful individual himself, but to all by whom he is surrounded. If mothers would not gratify their children when they fret for what they want, a good deal could be done toward preventing the little ones from acquiring a habit which will certainly contribute nothing toward the possessor's comfort, ease, or happiness, or toward that of any with whom he may come in contact.
“I know a lady who has a little boy, not yet three years old, who is inclined to be very fretful sometimes—though not at all sick—which might be an excuse. She never gives him anything that he asks for in a fretful tone. Before he was quite two-and-a-half years old, he had learned that when his mother said, ‘Can't give it to a fretful boy,’ that he was not to get it; and I have often heard his tone change in a few minutes, and he would reply, ‘I'm smilin’ now, mamma’—when his request, if a reasonable one, would always be promptly granted.
“Children of a fretful mother always fret, it might be safely asserted, and many indulge this bad habit whose mothers never gave way to it themselves, but, in many cases, did not take the trouble, or did not know how, to control it in their children.
“If anything were gained by it, there might be some little excuse for being uncomfortable one's self, and for making others so too—but we all know fretting accomplishes nothing, except making the one who indulges in it disagreeable to himself and to every one else. Therefore I conclude by saying, as I began—Don't fret yourself, and don't allow your children to fret.”