From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders

by J. E. Panton

The first danger that assails Angelina when baby arrives is that Edwin’s life shall be made a burden to him because all his little comforts are forgotten, the hours of meals altered, and Angelina herself is off upstairs every two minutes, because the dear infant is howling, or because she fancies he is howling. Even so, the nurse should be capable of quelling the rage, unassisted by her mistress, or she is not worth her wages, and had better go.

I hope I shall not be considered hard-hearted if I tell Angelina quite in confidence, that, if she can depend upon her cow, baby becomes a pleasure instead of a nuisance, if he or she and the cow are introduced at a very early stage of his or her career. In these days of ours few women are strong enough or have sufficient leisure to give themselves up entirely to the infant’s convenience; and I maintain that a woman has as much right to consider herself and her health, and her duties to her husband, society at large, and her own house, as to give herself up body and soul to a baby, who thrives as well on the bottle, if properly looked after, as on anything else.

I know quite well that by saying this I may lay myself open to all sorts of medical opinions, and I am sure to be told I am disgracing my sex. But, as I have done all through my book, I am speaking from experience, and only on subjects of which I have personal knowledge.

For had I not beautiful theories too when my eldest daughter arrived on the scene? We were living in one of the dullest, stupidest, nastiest little country towns in the world in those days, and there were few claims of society on me then. I had no particular occupations, and I was going to devote my energies to that poor child. I did. She howled remorselessly morning, noon, and night. The doctor, my dear old doctor, old-fashioned, too, in his notions, said my ways were correct, and he could not make out her shrieks at all. I confess I have struggled with her until I have wept with exhaustion, and at last a blessing in the shape of a good nurse arrived, and solved the mystery. The unfortunate infant was starved, and her shrieks were shrieks of hunger. She was introduced to a particularly nice Alderney cow; and from that day to this her cries ceased, and she has grown and thrived, and become an almost grown-up member of society, and a decidedly healthy one.

Despite my experience with Muriel, I honestly attempted to ‘do my duty’ with the two next; there were no shrieks this time, but there were all sorts of other things, and the cow had soon to be called into requisition; and my two youngest children, who are stronger and far less liable to small ailments and colds than the other three, never had anything else, and were as good and prosperous a pair of babies and children as one may wish to see, for after No. 3 had proved to me my theories were very beautiful as theories, but rather unworkable in practice, I gave them up, trusted a great deal to my good nurse, and clung to the cow. Naturally, Londoners are at the mercy of their milkman, but the Alderney Dairy, for example, possesses a conscience and good milk; and no one will ever convince me that milk out of tins can ever come up to the fresh, nice, clean milk given by a properly managed and constituted cow; and, of course, in the country one has one’s own cows and sees exactly what is going on, and knows one has the same milk, until the child is old enough to bear the change.

The great things for young children are quiet and regularity, and these are insured by having good nurseries and a good nurse. The nurse chosen for a first baby should never be less than twenty-five. Your young nurses are the most fearful mistakes for young mothers; they do not understand handling or dressing a baby, and they send off for the doctor at every moment, when an older woman would have the sense to know what to do, thus spending on the physician what would have paid good wages over and over again. They think of nothing save their own pleasure and amusement, and have no real love either for the child, who wearies them, or for the mistress, who, tired of their incapacity, is continually scolding without making any real change in the conduct, that is bad because the girl lacks what can only be given her by age, and a much longer experience than she can ever possibly possess. A perfect nurse is often obtained from a friend’s nursery where she has lived for some time as second nurse in a good establishment. She should have some four or five years’ character, and when found should be clung to, until Angelina’s nursery is transformed into the ‘girls’’ sitting-room, when nurse has often become so precious she stays on and on until transferred to the nursery of the first girl who is married and requires her help. What a comfort such a woman is to all in the house no one save the happy mistress can ever know! She is delightful in sickness and trouble, ‘her’ children are her first thought, their trials and joys are hers, and she helps, as only a good nurse can, the overworked mother should any special trials come, that are made bearable only because some one else shares them too.

But the perfect nurse presupposes the perfect nursery, and, as all young mothers should strive for the first at all events, so I do not see why I should not take it for granted that the baby is considered more than an occasional visitor, and describe at once how a nursery ought to be furnished and decorated, because I do not believe any child ought to be in the room in the day in which he and his nurse have slept all night; nor that a child should sleep all night in a room where his nurse has had her meals all day, and where he has been most of the twelve waking hours; any more than I consider a child’s day nursery should be his mother’s sitting-room, where visitors come, and all sorts of irregularities are practised in the way of draughts, heat, light, &c., that should never be allowed.

The day nursery should be as roomy a room as can be had, and the window should be able to be opened top and bottom; no blinds should be allowed, but the nice muslin and serge, or rather cretonne, curtains should be arranged here as elsewhere, to temper the light and make the room look cheerful and pretty.

Cheerfulness and prettiness should be the twin guardian angels of Angelina’s nurseries; a bright paper of either a faint pink or blue should be on the walls with a scarcely perceptible pattern; there should be a cretonne dado with a painted rail; and all the paint should be varnished to allow of its being frequently washed. That the cretonne dado cannot be washed does not matter one bit; it can be brushed frequently, and it always looks tidy, and defies the kickings of little feet and the pickings of small fingers, that so soon make chaos in the very smart rooms, unless particular care is taken that the children shall respect these rooms in a way they can easily be taught to do with very little trouble. I most successfully cured a young person of five, whose depredations were something awful, by making him pay up all his available cash towards a new paper. I never had to complain again, for he seemed to realise very quickly that if mischief cost money it was not worth the candle, and had better be given up.

But with a cretonne dado half the temptation to tear tempting morsels off corners is done away with, and the rail keeps off chairs from the paper, and gives a reason for the short-frilled curtains, that are in no one’s way and are never trailing on the ground, a trap for the unwary and a regular home for dust. The ceiling should be whitewashed, and should be done at least once every two years (it should really be done every spring); and if a little blue is put into the wash one gets a hint of colour, and does away with the utter ugliness and glare of the orthodox ceiling, which is always trying, and, in my eyes, spoils any house.