Women, Children, Love, and Marriage

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

Parents are greatly to blame for not answering the questions of their children, and being blind to their natural curiosity. And I would emphasise again that this curiosity is present even when no questions are asked. There need be no spoken words to make the child feel that its questions are discouraged. All adults are surprisingly ignorant of the affectability of children—their quick response to every kind of influence.

In the case of the birth of another child—an usurper who takes the older child’s place—this affectability is exceedingly acute on account of the emotional disturbance, in excitement and possible jealousy. And by means of the adult attitude, the very certain interest and investigation of the child into what is happening may so easily become confused and connected with what is shameful and wrong; and the trouble is aided, and usually in the worst possible manner, by the sharpest observations and deductions made by the child from unconsidered actions and overheard remarks of parents, and of servants and other adults—none of whom have any idea of the child’s watchfulness or his curiosity in this matter.

We think little children are not interested in birth because we do not want them to be interested. And they, with the almost uncanny sagacity which children show, understand this desire only too well and too quickly.

I had a striking illustration of this curious adult blindness quite recently. Two mothers, who were sisters, were pregnant at the same time. Each mother told me privately that her children were not interested in the event or in any way curious, but that her sister’s children were curious and wanting to find out what was happening. It would have been useless to tell these mothers the truth. Yet both of them were intelligent. They believed that their own children had no curiosity because they wished to believe this, not because it was true.

Thwarted curiosity is one of the most frequent causes of emotional disturbance in the first years of life. Do we not all know children who as they get older exhibit an unreasoning curiosity about everything, opening drawers, looking into the envelopes of other people’s letters, searching excitedly for what they do not want. We want to ask the question: Why does the child do this? What is it that urges him to act like a “Peeping Tom?” For he is urged. You will find this habit of needless prying almost impossible to check. It may persist into adult life. Do not we all know grown-ups who cannot refrain from prying, always curious, they are, on all occasions, seeking for knowledge they do not want.

This seeking action is symbolic. It implies that the search for the thing that is not wanted, the curiosity over something of no interest at all, is a substitute action for something that at one time was wanted—something about which knowledge was desired, and desired so much that it would not be denied. It was a curiosity so real that the thwarting of it has started emotional trouble of which these searching acts and persisting curiosity are the symbol or sign.

This substitute formation is one of the commonest emotional processes in children. The child pries, open drawers and letters, collects useless objects, aimlessly searches for knowledge he does not want because there is some knowledge he wants tremendously badly, but cannot speak about. That is why he persists in his habits of peeping and prying in spite of your scoldings and punishments. He must persist, unless you deaden his character so terribly by your ill-judged repression that even this substitute relief is closed. Your child will then, probably, find some other make-believe comfort; he will bite his nails, pick his nose, or other much worse habits may begin, or again the emotional disturbance may be so acute that it becomes impossible for the child to face, so that he fails in achieving any kind of symbolic replacement. The thwarted and emotionally over-charged curiosity is thrust back into the psyche where it remains a cause of ill-health of body and uncleanness of mind, until that time in the adult years, when the harvest of tares is reaped from the bad seed that has been sown.

The parents have the greatest responsibility, as I have said already. A child of four or even younger may begin to ask questions of its mother, simply and spontaneously. It is the child who must guide the parent. But again I would give warning. The mother must not be over-eager, or she will fall easily into the error of stimulating instead of quieting the child’s restless inquiring mind. The child at the age when such questions will first be asked and should be answered, will very quickly tire of any information that may be given to it. It will break off to run away and play and will interrupt the most beautiful and carefully prepared lessons. And if the mother is wise she will never go beyond the interest of the child, or the satisfying and nothing further, of the special curiosity which at that special time is occupying the child. If this course is pursued the child will probably continue to ask for information—though there can be no certainty that this desirable result will follow. But where such opportunities arise the right kind of sex instruction can be attempted. For the mother will be able to give answers in natural conversation, which will not force information not sought for by the child. When so treated, it will be found that children are not over-burdened by the subject, they will interrupt and break away from the answer to the question they have asked to speak about toy soldiers or dolls. This, to me, is the immense value of this form of teaching: the child has the information, and yet does not trouble about it when it is not to the point. Such a result can never be gained by means of set talks or fixed lessons, especially if these are mixed up with warnings, and much vague talk of things that the child neither cares for or understands.

I should, however, be giving a wrong impression if I left the matter here, so that this answering of children’s questions seemed to be a simple matter. It is not simple. For each child, as for each adult the problems of sex are personal problems. And the child whose problem is the hardest—who most urgently needs help, will hardly ever ask questions. Instruction in sex is not and never can be like teaching the child about other things. That is what so many of the modern advocates of sex education so entirely forget.