Mother's Room | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

Mother's Room.

At one time in her early married life, when Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss was struggling under a pressure of care, ill-health of herself and her children, united with the soreness of bereavement, we find her saying: "A little room all my own, a regular hour morning and night all my own, would enable me, I think, to say, 'Now let life do its worst.'"

And out of her own experience many a tired, worn housewife and mother echoes this cry from her very heart. What a boon would be the undisturbed quiet of a little room! It would ward off many a nervous headache; it would help to keep from utterance many a sharp, hasty word, which, when tired and tried, comes too easily to the lips; it would give clearer thought for domestic tangles, and fresh vigor to take up the domestic burdens. A little time "all her own," she will not spend the brief moment selfishly; she only desires a breathing spell, as it were, to —

"Mend the nets of usefulness, And rest awhile for duties."

Said an aged woman: "I used to take my baby and go to a little closet under the stairs and pray."

Her room was full of little children, of those passing in and out; there was no place of retirement for her save the closet under the stairs. Father has his study, or the sitting-room, to retire to when he returns from business. Hattie and Carrie have their own pretty rooms; Tom and Ned have theirs; all may turn the key, if necessary, to keep out intruders—but mother? She writes her letters (if she can), and answers little Will's and Nellie's thousand and one questions, confers with Bridget or Dinah, who enter without knocking, on culinary matters, and tells father where the tack hammer is, and promises Tom to clean his coat collar. She performs her afternoon (or any other) toilet in the most hasty manner, liable to interruption from any member of the family; she reads her Bible amid the ceaseless questionings of the little ones, and the hum of conversation among the older ones.

"But she is used to it. She doesn't mind it." Is she? Doesn't she? There was no tenderer wife and mother than Mrs. Prentiss, yet hear her long for the little room all her own. And I care not how loving and care-taking for her household a mother may be, there must be hours when every earnest soul longs to be alone with itself. Is there any remedy? I trow not. Yet the household, aye, even the guests, might be more considerate of the mother's privacy.

—Evangelical Messenger.