p. 11 | HOME CRITICISM by Mary R. Baldwin

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 22, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 34.

HOME CRITICISM.

By Mary R. Baldwin

FREEDOM has always its attendant perils, and even the home, where it might be supposed that perfect liberty should be claimed without fear of disastrous consequences, is not exempt from them. The right to speak the mind in the place where we are best understood, without the necessity of careful explanation, or the haunting possibility of misrepresentation of our words, is a great privilege; yet it is often abused, and becomes a curse, when it might be a blessing. When pride and passion and jealousy enter into the spirit and conversation of the home, it becomes a center from which spiteful, unjust, and even cruel influences are sent forth into the world, and these in turn create new forces for evil that can not be computed.

No child grows to manhood or womanhood, and goes forth from the home into the world, without carrying impressions of people and things gained in the family. One has only to use personal experience to prove this fact. A sentence with reference to a person, caught even in childhood, may bias the mind so that no after influence will be able to change the early effect.

Home criticism is a forceful thing, and it becomes baneful when used in its worst form—that of picking a character to pieces, and laying it out, piece by piece, for the ridicule or contempt of others. There are homes where criticism is a ruling practise, one of the family at least being addicted to it, through a peculiar make-up, or through something that has come in to embitter the spirit or to stir up jealousy. Some are born with a critical nature. Self-conceit, and personal dissatisfaction with things as they are, will breed fault-finding; there is a sort of smartness that finds criticism as the most appropriate way to prove itself. The great I is responsible for most of the burning, harsh, unjust words that are spoken of others. When a parent indulges in this form of egotism, the children are very apt to follow his example.

Sometimes a trifling incident not only puts one awry with general conditions, but creates family feuds that may last through long years, and be repeated in a succeeding generation.

Sometimes even in the small circle of the one spot where each should be linked to the others in a strong, loyal way, there are exclusive preferences that divide the interests and engender coldness and criticism. The little mistakes and faults are subject to the remarks of the two who by nature are drawn to each other. There have been cases where an unlike member of the family has become almost a subject of persecution; has suffered loneliness, and when of a sensitive nature has lost heart and purpose, all on account of the criticisms of his own brothers and sisters.

There have also been instances of family separations, married sisters growing apart, and their children becoming like strangers, because this early habit of harsh and unsympathetic judgment developed the worst feelings, and held the gentler from expression. They carried the habit into their own homes, and talked freely of the things that did not please them in their early experience.

"Aunt Marian always thought herself a little better than her sisters," said the daughter of one of these critical women, who had acquired the habit of cold, heartless fault-finding in her youth. The listener knew that the lady so severely judged was a sweet, gentle woman, whose high ideals had placed her above the plane of the sister who could not understand, and therefore disliked her. She knew, too, that the lady had tried, in a loving, wise way, to influence the children of the sister whom she loved, in spite of her unkindness, but had failed—and why?—Simply because these young people had been prejudiced by the criticisms offered by their mother, from their childhood.

"But if I think things, and have a sound sense of fitness, and see the ridiculous, and all that, can I not have the privilege of speaking to my own about what impresses me so forcibly?" asks one. Another question might be asked right here in reply: Are you sure that you would notice as quickly, and express as readily, what pleases you in a character? Unless you are, you may be sure that the demon of cruel criticism has you even now in its clutches.

We can not afford to go through the world looking for the worst, and drawing attention to it; for we can not afford to kill our kindness, hope, and trust.—Mary R. Baldwin.