p. 203 | HOME MANAGEMENT

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1861

HOME MANAGEMENT.

“I do not know,” said my friend, “any greater domestic tyrants than indulged children. When I was growing up, my cousin Mary and I were very fond of each other. She was one of the most amiable girls I ever saw. She did not know how to refuse any one a favor; and she was so easy at all times, and so seldom annoyed at home, that her brothers used laughingly to call her ‘Miss Comfortable.’ When she was about twenty, she married, and went with her husband to a distant city; and it was many years before I saw her again, although we corresponded with some regularity. After the death of my husband and little Harry, she wrote me a very affectionate letter, desiring me to come and pass the winter with her, adding that ‘her three beautiful but rather noisy children would be delighted to see the cousin Alice of whom she had so often told them.’ I did indeed receive a hearty welcome; and after our first greetings were over, I began to make acquaintance with her little ones, who were eight, six, and three years old. Their names were Kate, Fannie, and Charlie, all bright and healthy looking children. I soon saw that they governed their mother completely. If she denied them in any way, a constant teasing or crying generally produced the desired effect; and the first refusal, gradually weakened by continued and repeated attacks, usually ended with ‘this time only, remember.’ I will state one instance:

“Kate and Fannie slept in a little room next to mine, and the door between was generally open. One morning I heard Fanny say, ‘I am going into Mrs. Montane’s this afternoon to play with Susie.’ ‘Ma won’t let you go,’ answered Kate, ‘for you have been in there almost every day this week, and you know that she said last evening you should not go in again till Susie had been in here.’ ‘I will go,’ exclaimed Fanny, who was a very selfwilled child. ‘All I’ve got to do is to cry hard enough, and she’ll let me go to stop the noise. Ma always says no, and then lets us do things, don’t she Kate?’ to which the latter assented.

“Accordingly, after dinner, Fannie proceeded to ask her mother as she said. ‘No, my dear,’ was the reply; ‘I told you yesterday that you had been in so often I did not wish you to go again till Susie had been in here.’ ‘But I want to go ever so much,’ answered Fannie, with strong symptoms of crying. ‘I can’t help it,’ said her mother; ‘whereupon the child commenced a steady shout of ‘Ma, do let me go! Ma do let me go!’ ‘Do not make so much noise, dear,’ was the placid response. From crying, Fannie began screaming, and finally in a great rage, came up and struck her mother; and as the latter put out her hand to push her away, she seized it and bit it quite severely. ‘Oh! Fannie, Fannie, naughty girl! mother will have to punish her,’ exclaimed my cousin Mary, somewhat roused by this last exhibition of temper, and rather ashamed for me to witness it. As such threats were seldom carried into execution, the child continued sobbing and screaming, until her mother, quite worn out, said, ‘Will you be a very good little girl if I let you go a little while?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Fannie promptly, pleased to have attained her ends. ‘Well, then, you may go and stay an hour.’ She went, and the hour lengthened out into an afternoon, and we did not see her again till tea-time.