THE MOTHER'S RIGHT by J. F. L.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1889

THE MOTHER'S RIGHT.

By J. F. L.

AMONG the many "rights" which women are demanding and exercising to-day, the mother's right to forestall "reform" and make "criminal legislation" unnecessary, runs the risk of being overlooked. Our public-spirited women are doing, in many directions, good and noble work for fallen man; but it is a serious question with the thoughtful observer whether the average mother is not guilty of more corruption in the nursery than can be reformed by her sisters from the public platform.

That the smallest infant has hereditary tendencies from ancestors near and remote, whose influence precedes all exercise of a mother's power, none will deny. A father's strong influence for good or evil, all will acknowledge. The subsequent benumbing atmosphere of "society" cannot be forgotten. But closer than all these has throbbed the mother's heart, and in those earliest and only years in which man entertains absolute, unquestioning faith in human teaching, it is his mother who represents to him the law of life.

It would probably startle the great mass of well-meaning mothers to have the adult errors of their sons explained, as were those of the Hebrew king: "For his mother was his counselor to do wickedly;" and yet, let us see what close observation of the home rule of a large proportion of even so-called "Christian women" reveals.

While the writer was visiting the relatives of a celebrated clergyman, the distinguished man, who had not been in that part of the country for years, accepted an invitation to meet several friends informally. The seven-year-old son of the family, given to loud roaring whenever his wishes were crossed, was allowed to sit up, and was thus exhorted: "Now, Tom, you must behave well; for your uncle is a celebrated man, and I want him to admire you." Result: Tom, the most perfect of imitation gentlemen for that evening, while roaring and kicking as lustily as ever at breakfast the next morning, the conviction remaining with him that to seem and not to be is the important thing in life.

A mother, an active and prominent member of various public societies for "liberalizing thought" and "promoting reform," found it difficult to make her son rise on Sunday morning in time to be ready for church. She finally adopted the expedient of sending his little sister to tell him that it was half an hour later than it really was; and he, too indolent to look at his own watch, was thus beguiled by his mother's and sister's falsehood to a religious service to which all three of their lives gave the direct lie. Could the beauty of truth and the call of duty seem real to those two poor children? And yet by whose training were they made to seem unreal?

Again, still in the circle of the writer's immediate acquaintance, a mother went to confer with the teacher of a school to which the former had just sent her son. "I know your principle is to appeal solely to the higher nature, and to make pupils learn by inspiring an intellectual interest in their studies and a sense of duty in their souls. That sounds very beautiful, but you can do nothing with my son in that way. Appeal to his vanity, suggest to him to outshine others, and he will do all you wish. I thought I would give you a hint how to manage him." It is interesting to know that the teacher remained true to the higher standard, and that the second year saw the boy, who, according to his mother, could be moved only through his selfish vanity, an alert and interested scholar, holding excellent rank in a school whose motto was, "Do your best, and rejoice with him who can do better."

The writer's love for children leading her to make frequent visits to the luxurious nursery of a friend, she noticed that a sweet-tempered little fellow was constantly deprived of his playthings and generally imposed upon by his brother. The mother's attention being called to it, she said placidly, "It is so fortunate that Willie will submit to such treatment, for dear Phil is such a high-spirited boy that opposition would make him frantic." That amiability had any rights, or that a "high spirit" could be brutally selfish, had never occurred to her. In another nursery were the children of a gentleman who, with his brothers, was noted for violent outbreaks of temper on the slightest provocation, the theory of home discipline having been the common laisser-aller of the last two generations. The wives of these brothers could not conceal the bitterness brought into their own lives by contact with natures at once so violent and so ignorant of self-control. Yet in this nursery, where the mother spoke frankly of the intolerable strain imposed upon her by her husband's conduct, she still laughingly allowed her tiny sons to bite and kick and scratch each other, as if they had been little tigers, instead of creatures with a conscience to be reached and hearts to be touched. The little fellows happened to have hearts as warm as their tempers, and as quick perception of the right when it was put before them, so that this giving them over to the lower possibilities of their nature was as needless as it was wicked. When, at twelve years of age, the eldest boy had to be sent away to school because he was utterly unmanageable at home, he was as truly the fruit of his mother's training as of his father's sins.

On a railway train the writer noticed the entrance of a mother and little son who were unexpectedly greeted by a friend of the mother's. The friend was only going from one way-station to the next, while the others were on a long journey. There happened to be but one vacant double seat in the car; and into this the boy slipped, taking the seat next to the window. His mother, eager to improve the ten minutes with her friend, asked her son to give up his seat and take another for that little time, so that she could sit with her friend. "No, I won't; because I want to sit by the window, and all the other seats have people already at the windows."

"But, darling, only for ten minutes, and then you can sit by the window all day."

"No, I won't go. I want to sit by the window now."

"But, dear, not to give mamma pleasure?"

"No."

"Not for just ten little minutes, when mamma wants so much to talk to her friend, and you can sit by the window the whole day long?"

"No!"—with impatient emphasis. And in spite of humble entreaty from the mother, and good-natured urging from the friend, that home-nurtured bit of selfishness kept his place, the mother never dreaming of insisting on the right and courteous thing, but murmured gently that "Bobby did so enjoy looking out of the window." When seven-year-old Bobby becomes Robert the husband, his sad little wife will wonder, "Why is it that men have so little tenderness for their wives?"

Not for a moment would one seem to forget that there are wise and noble women whose children rise up and call them blessed, and whose influence makes for that righteousness whose fruit is integrity. But such mothers shine against a dark background of women who, without any distinct consciousness of the evil they are doing, are nevertheless training from the very nursery great numbers of men who, while keeping within the limits of respectability, are not only the mere shadows of true manhood, but also the tricky politician, the unscrupulous merchant, the shameless sensualist, and the elegant embezzler.—J. F. L., in the Century.