What a Young Wife Ought to Know

by Emma F. Angell Drake

When mothers understand what a safeguard intelligent teaching of truth is to their children, they will prepare themselves for it, and will so keep their boys and girls in their confidence that they will have no secret from them. When they feel and know that they can come to mother with all their enquiries, and get honest recognition and teaching, they will not care to go elsewhere when curiosity is aroused and they desire knowledge on any point. This sweet confidence between mother and child cannot be too carefully nurtured.

There is an inborn curiosity concerning the physical being and its mysteries, and the child has a right to be met fairly in its questionings, and to be properly taught at the outset. Do not begin, dear young mothers by turning your children away, no matter how pertinent the question; neither begin with a semi-falsehood, or what is little worse or misleading, an entire one. Your children will learn, and if you do not teach them, some one else less fitted will. As soon as they are old enough to take in at least a part of the great truth, tell them what those organs are for, and how sacredly they should guard them, if they expect to become fathers and mothers, that will be a blessing to the world.

Children very early begin to question and as early they should receive intelligent, honest answers to their enquiries. Oh! that the element of gross impurity were removed from the knowledge of the sexual nature; and it will be when mothers have rightly learned the truth themselves, and so teach it to their children.

You can all the way along, teach your children sufficient to gratify their legitimate curiosity and serve as a safeguard against their tampering with their bodies in a way to do them harm. When you have taught them all you think they should know, if you have dealt with them in a frank way, and they have no reason to doubt your word, you will find them very easily satisfied with the remark, “This is all you can understand now, my dear, but as you get older and can understand better, come to mamma with all you want to know, and she will tell you.”

Fortify them also with this: “Never ask any of the boys and girls about these things, because there is a great deal said that is not true, and they will not tell you right, but come to mamma always, and this shall be our secret, that we will not tell any one else.” It is remarkable to see how this confidence generates pride in being able to have a secret with mamma and keeping it inviolate.

If there is the slightest tendency in your children to secret vice, do not allow them to sleep together in the same bed, as curiosity may lead them into danger. Keep them apart from other children, except as you are present with them, until you are sure they are old enough to be masters of themselves.

Should you discover in your children what might seem a tendency toward this evil you can do much to eradicate it by attending strictly to hygienic rules. Keep from their food all that is stimulating, as coffee, pepper, spices, pickles, or condiments of any kind. Give them plain food at regular hours; and before retiring, to make sure of a refreshing night’s sleep, give them a quick sponge bath of salt and water, rubbing well after with a coarse towel. The water should be only tepid, and the subsequent rubbing vigorous. In the morning a shower bath of cool water will insure good circulation, and if followed by a brisk rubbing, will add strength and tone.

Children who incline to this weakness are listless and disinclined to exercise. They must be encouraged to take all the outdoor exercise that they need, and everything should be done to encourage them in it. Above all, do not treat your child, even if the habit is formed before you discover it, as if he were a criminal. He is unfortunate, and ignorant of the wrong or the danger he is in. Lead him kindly away from the temptation and into strength by patient, kindly love and watchfulness, added to your truthful teaching.

Children, until they are old enough to be trusted, should not be out from under their mother’s watchful eye, or the care of a wise and trusted nurse, and never away with companions who are not known to be thoroughly trustworthy. When other children come to play with them they should not be left alone, but even their play should be directed, lest they get on dangerous ground.

Says Doctor Eldridge, in his book on Self Enervation, “An evil like this should receive far greater consideration at the hands of fathers and mothers, and even the medical man, than it hitherto has done. It is the solemn and imperative duty of every physician to warn parents of this danger to their offspring, and if possible to erect barriers against the tide of its destruction.”