TO WHOM DOES THE CHILD BELONG?
By Mary Wood Allen, M.D.
THE parents look upon the newborn child and say, "This is my child. He belongs to me." They anticipate the pleasure they will take in his development; they look forward to the time when he will be a support to their old age; they admire themselves in his features; they prophesy their own talents reproduced in him; they love themselves in him; they amuse themselves with him. He is tickled and played with, that they may smile; he is stimulated to walk, or to manifest awakening intellect, that they may feel pride; his sleep is disturbed, that they may receive flattery of friends; he is dressed to please their fancy, regardless of his health or comfort. In truth, they act as if they thought that his existence was chiefly, if not solely, for them. He belongs to them. If this feeling is not founded on a right understanding of things, it might be well to ask seriously, "If this child does not so entirely belong to his parents, to whom does he belong?" Upon the answer to this question depends his right education. If he belongs to the parents, then their feelings, fancies, pleasures, might decide his training. If he primarily belongs to someone else, the interests of that other one should be consulted, and that other one is the child himself. In the first place, the child belongs to himself, then he belongs to God, then to humanity, of whom his parents form a part. Someone may ask in horrified amazement, "Does not the child belong to God first of all?" In a certain sense he does, and yet God himself recognizes the inherent individuality of each one, his right to himself, when he says, "My son, give me thine heart." God has claims to love and obedience, as have the parents, but it depends upon the individual whether he shall recognize those claims. He has the power to choose, and, by recognizing this power, God himself grants to each his right to himself. The value of belonging to God consists in its being a voluntary surrender of self. If, then, we admit that the child's first right is himself, we see clearly that all training must have for its object the interest of the child, therefore must vary with his temperament and constitution. And this consideration of the child's good must be the underlying motive in every act of the parent, in which the child is concerned. His first needs are physical, therefore he must be fed, bathed, dressed, exercised, or quieted with regard to ultimate results, and not in accordance with his unreasoning whims, nor the injudicious love of the parent. The child's physical development demands activity; the pride of the mother would clothe him in laces and embroideries, to protect which he must be deprived of active sports. No textile fabric is of equal value to the wonderful physical garment which the vital forces, in that active little body, are weaving as a visible clothing for the invisible spirit. If "silk attire" in any sense interferes with truest development, it must be discarded. The physical individuality must control. All children cannot be dressed or fed alike. The delicate, feeble child must receive a care and attention not needed by the vigorous one, in fact, which might be detrimental to him. And the danger perhaps is that the weakling will be coddled until he is made still more feeble. Great wisdom is needed to know just how to do best for the bodily welfare of our children, and the majority of men and women marry and enter upon the duty of educating these wonderful little beings without one particle of especial training for the work; and, acting upon the supposition that the child belongs to them, their methods are not always calculated to produce the most desirable results. Fathers too often imagine that the child training is to be done by the mother; that when the father comes home everything about the household must conduce to his comfort. If the child is a little noisy in his play, the father harshly checks him, never for one moment considering that the child has any right in the matter. This sounds on the surface as if the child should be allowed to rule the household, but that is not the thought intended to be conveyed. The father is weary, and desires quiet, and that is right. The only question is, How shall he obtain his needs and at the same time consult the best interest of the child? The sharp, quick reprimand, the box on the ear, the shoulder shaking, may secure quiet, but does it by tyranny, a triumph of brute force. The only feeling aroused in the mind of the child is one of rebellion and of disinclination to regard the rights of others. Obedience is not the primary object of discipline. If it were, it would matter little in what way obedience were secured. The great underlying principle of all true training is development of character. If obedience were the primary object, then when the child is scolded, boxed, or shaken to silence, the desired result is obtained. If development is the object, the securing of silence by those means is a failure. What shall be the process by which the needs of the father and the good of the child shall be accomplished? That depends upon the individuality of the child; but training in a care for the rights of others should be begun in infancy, and by the time the child is old enough to be whipped into obedience, he will have learned the lesson of thoughtfulness, so that, voluntarily, he will keep quiet in order that the parent may rest. A little boy of two years, who had observed that the rest of any member of the family was con138sidered sacred by the other members, never saw anyone lie down for a nap that he did not go to cover a shawl over the sleeper, and with his finger on his lip intimate to everyone who came in the room that silence must be maintained. There was in his mind no feeling of irritation that his activity was lessened, because he obeyed the rule of quietness through his own volition, and that constitutes the value of obedience. God himself recognizes this, and gives his children the opportunity to choose obedience or disobedience, and the results of each. If the child, clearly knowing that punishment will follow disobedience, chooses to disobey, he will not accept the penalty as just, but will rebel at the injustice which leaves him no power of choice, but compels obedience through superior strength. The thoughtful parent looking upon the "bundle of capabilities" which he calls his child, and recognizing that the child primarily belongs to himself, will have an incentive to work out the problem of that child's training with "fear and trembling," lest he shall fail under the responsibility. One of the most imperative rights of the child is a strong, unbroken will. In the struggle of life he will need all the will power that he can command. It must not be an ungoverned will, but the governing power must be in the child himself. The duty of the parent is not to break the child's will, but to teach him to wisely use it. His value as an individual may be measured by his will power. Willfulness is not an evidence of strong will, but rather of undisciplined will and weakness of character. The man will need to decide between different courses of conduct. If choice has always been denied him as a child, he will thereby be deprived of experience, and will vacillate in his decisions. He must be trained to obedience, for during his whole life he must be under law; but he should be trained to a voluntary obedience rather than submission through coercion. Herbert Spencer says, "Whoso is to rule his passions in maturity, must be practiced in ruling them in youth. He must be induced to fix the boundaries of his own actions and voluntarily confine himself within them." A contest of will between parent and child is to be avoided as a "conflict of brute force." The wise parent will avoid a contest, even in those cases where he does not intend to give the child an opportunity of choice. A gentleman writing at his desk told his little son to shut the outer door. The boy could not open the door when it was latched, therefore he only closed it, leaving it unfastened. The wind blew it open, and again he was told to shut it, and again left it unlatched, so that he could run in and out. After the third time of this half obedience, the father rose, gave the boy his cap, opened the door, and said: "Ward, you like the cool air; I don't. You can go out; I will shut the door and stay in; then we will both be suited." The boy recognized that this act of his father was a direct result of his own conduct, and could feel no injustice. But supposing the child had said he did not want to go outdoors? Then the father could have said, "You will have to choose between going out or staying in with the door shut." As it was, there was no contest of wills, and yet the father invaded no right of the child, nor did he suffer his own rights to be invaded, nor did he allow the child to have supremacy. Children are often supposed to be stubborn, when they are unable to do that which is required of them. Especially is this the case where fear is brought in as an element of coercion. A little boy was trying to learn to count. His father believed in driving in knowledge with the whip. He had learned as far as fifteen, and then stubbornly, as the father thought, refused to learn sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, and the more he was whipped the more obstinate he became. When asked the reason, he replied, "I don't know, but I can't think when papa whips me." The mother decided that he should be helped without knowing how it was done. So in the evening, while undressing the baby, she began to sing a little rhyme in which these three numbers had a large place. The boy became interested, and in ten minutes had learned the numbers, and also had learned their connection with the numbers that preceded them. The father had been trying to break the boy's will, and in reality the boy had been willing, as hard as fear would let him, to do what the father desired. H. Clay Trumbull, in his excellent book on child training, in the chapter on training the will, points out that God's way is to permit his children to choose, that is, to have freedom of the will, and take the consequences of their choice, and suggests that a wise parent will study this divine plan and endeavor to apply it in the guidance of his own household.—The Advance.