Emotional experiences cannot be made public without danger of blunting or coarsening the fiber of character. Privacy is needed for intimate talks, even between mother and daughter. The casual nature of the employment of the unskilled has also its bearing upon the family relationship. The name or address of the place of employment of the various members of the family is often not known. “How could I know Louisa was in trouble?” said a simple mother of our neighborhood. “She is a good girl to me. I don’t know where she works. I don’t know her friends.”
And the wide span that stretches between the conventions of one generation and another must also be reckoned with. The clash between them, unhappily familiar to many whose experiences never become known outside the family circle, is likely to be intensified when the Americanized wage-earning son or daughter reverses the relationship of child and parent by becoming the protector and the link between the outside world and the home. The service of the settlement as interpreter seems in this narrower sphere almost as useful as its attempts to bring about understanding between separated sections of society.
One evening an eloquent speaker addressing a senior group dwelt upon the hardships of the older people and the obligations of their children to them. The young women lingered after the speaker had gone, discussing the lecture and applying it to themselves. Though sensitive to the appeal, they were loath to relinquish their right to self-expression. One girl thought her parents demanded an impossible sacrifice by insisting on living in a street to which she was ashamed to bring her associates. The parents refused to leave the quarter where their countrymen dwelt, and although the daughter willingly gave her earnings and paid tribute to her mother’s devotion and housekeeping skill, she said she felt irritated and mortified every time she returned to her home.
Quite naturally it came about in the beginning of our understanding of the young people that we should take some action to protect them from the disastrous consequences of their ignorance; for it is difficult for the mothers to touch upon certain themes of great import. They are not indifferent, but rather helpless, in the face of the modern city’s demands upon motherhood. Rarely do they feel adequate to meet them. Yet they desire that their girls, and the boys too, should be guarded from the dangers that threaten them.
Years ago we invited the school teachers of the neighborhood to a conference on sex problems and offered them speakers and literature. The public has since then become aroused on the subject of sex hygiene, and possibly, in some instances, the pendulum has swung too far; but we are convinced that this obligation to the young cannot be ignored without assuming grave risks. Never have I known an unfavorable reaction when the presentation of this subject has been well considered. It is impossible to give directions as to how it should be done; temperament, development, and environment influence the approach. The girl invariably responds to the glorification of her importance as woman and as future mother, and the theme leads on naturally to the miracle of nature that guards and then creates; and the young men have shown themselves far from indifferent to their future fatherhood. Fathers and mothers should be qualified, and an increasing number are trying to take this duty upon themselves; but where the parents confess their helplessness the duty plainly devolves upon those who have established confidential relations with the members of the family.
At Riverholm.