p. 237 | TO MOTHERS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 15.

TO MOTHERS.

If you say "No" mean "No." Unless you have a good reason for changing a given command, hold to it.

Take an interest in your children's amusements; mother's share in what pleases them is a great delight. Remember that trifles to you are mountains to them; respect their feelings.

Keep up a standard of principles; your children are judges.

Be honest with them in small things as well as in great. If you cannot tell them what they wish to know, say so, rather than deceive them.

If you have lost a child, remember that for the one who is gone there is no more to do, but for those left, everything.

Make your girls and boys study philosophy; when they are ill try and make them comprehend why and how the complaint arose, and the remedy, so far as you know it.

Impress upon them, from early infancy, that their actions have results, and that they cannot escape consequences even by being sorry when they have done wrong.

Respect their little secrets; if they have concealments, fretting them will never make them tell, and time and patience will.

Allow them, as they grow older, to have opinions of their own; make them individuals and not mere echoes.

Find out all their special tastes and develop them instead of spending time, money, and patience in forcing them into studies that are entirely repugnant to them.

Mothers, whatever else you may teach your girls, do not neglect to instruct them in the mysteries of housekeeping. So shall you put them in the way of making home happy. —Selected.