Into the conception of the duties of motherhood among the very poor we cannot go in this short paper—the subject is too vast—so we must confine ourselves to discussing those of a higher class where, having the means to do well, the responsibilities are far greater. I want, if I can, to open a window, as it were, upon the outlook of the general responsibility of motherhood and let each class apply what it gathers of the meaning, if it wishes, to its own circumstances.
It is the aim and end of a thing which is of sole importance; in this case the aim and end being the happiness and welfare of the child. And that is the point which I want to harp upon, the necessity of keeping the goal in view and of not wandering off into side issues. It was for the sake of the end, namely, obtaining happiness, that I tried to show in my articles upon marriage how common sense might secure this desired state. And it was to the end of what might be best for England that I pleaded for the necessity of using fair judgment over the question of facilitating or restricting divorce. And it is now to the end of helping the coming race to be fine and true that I want to talk about the responsibility of motherhood.
Let us take the subject from the very beginning.
PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES
The thought for the child should commence with the first knowledge of its coming birth. A tremendous control of self, and emotions, and foolish habits, and a stern command of nerves should be the prospective mother’s constant effort, as science has proved that all pre-natal influences have such powerful effect upon the child; and, surely, if any woman stopped to think of the colossal responsibility she has undertaken in having become the vehicle to bring a soul from God to earth, she would at least try to employ as much intelligence in the fulfilment of her obligation as she puts into succeeding in any of the worldly pursuits in life. Think of the hours some women spend in painful discipline by going through exercises to keep their figures young and their faces beautiful—the massage! the cures! and the “rests” they take to this end—but who let their waiting time for motherhood be passed in a sort of relaxation of all control—getting into tempers, indulging in nerves, over-smoking, or tiring themselves out with excitement without one thought for the coming little one, except as an inevitable necessity or a shocking nuisance. During this period the wise woman ought to study such matters as heredity. She ought to view the characteristics of her own and her husband’s families, and then firmly determine to counteract the objectionable features in them by making her own mind dwell upon only good and fine attributes for her child. She ought to try to keep herself in perfect health by using common sense, and, above all, she should determine to fight and conquer the nervous emotions which more or less beset all women at such time. She ought to encourage happy and loving relations with her husband, and try in every way to be in herself good and gentle and brave. It is the most important moment in the whole of a woman’s life for self-discipline, because of the prodigious results of all her moods and actions upon the child, and yet, as I said before, it is one of the commonest sights to see a woman who at other times is a very good sort of creature, simply letting herself go and becoming an insupportable bore to her husband and the whole house, with her perverseness and her nerves and her fads.
If they could analyse causes, what bitter reproaches many poor little diseased, neurotic children might truly throw at their irresponsible mothers for endowing them with these evils before birth.
THE CASE OF TWO WOMEN
When the child is born—again it is only its welfare which should be thought of by the mother, and not what custom or family opinion would enforce. To me it seems that no mother ought to undertake any of the so-called duties of a mother that she is incapable of performing to the advantage of the child, who would be better cared for by employing highly trained service. She should only force herself to do her best in uncongenial tasks if circumstances make it impossible for her to obtain a better nurse or teacher for her infant than she herself could be. She must constantly keep the end in view, so as to stamp out prejudice and out-of-date methods; especially she should guard against making the child suffer for her own fads and experiments. I believe I shall better illustrate what I mean by “keeping the end in view” if I give a few concrete examples, instead of trying to explain in the abstract.
Here is one example.
There were two women of my acquaintance, one of whom had an exquisitely obedient, perfectly brought-up little girl of five who was her constant thought, and a baby of two months. This mother could afford an excellent nurse, and left all the physical care of the infant to her, concentrating her intelligence upon wise general supervision, and upon the training of the little girl whose dawning character was her study. The other mother had two very ill-behaved, disobedient children of five and seven, and a baby of three months. She spent her time washing and dressing the infant, fussing over it and caressing it from morning to night, and interfering with the paid nurse, who well knew her duties. She was also quite indifferent to her appearance, and wearied her husband to death with her over-domesticity. But she felt herself to be a perfect and affectionate wife and mother, and strongly censured the other woman when she admitted that she had never washed or dressed her baby, and was even rather nervous when she held it in case she should hurt its tender neck and head. But the proof that the first woman was a true and good guardian of God’s gift to her was in the finely trained little girl, and the proof of the second woman’s undevelopment from the animal stage was in her concentrated and, in the circumstances, unnecessary preoccupation with the infant, to the entire neglect of the character training of the elder children. Had they both been so poor that actual physical care of the infants devolved solely upon each mother, the first would have used all her intelligence to discover the sensible and common-sense way to carry out her duties, and the second would have continued using any obsolete method she had been accustomed to, while she lavished silly fuss and attention upon the baby.