Radiant Motherhood: A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future

by Marie Carmichael Stopes

To have fresh air to breathe; to play in the sunshine with his limbs free in the air; to crawl about on sweet clean grass.

When he is good, to do what baby wants to do and not what his parents want; for instance, to sleep most of his time, not to sit up and crow in response to having his cheeks pinched or his sides tickled.

When he is naughty, to do what his parents want and not what he wants: to be made to understand the “law of the jungle.” From his earliest days he must be disciplined in relation to the great physical facts of existence, to which he will always hereafter have to bow. The sooner he comprehends this, the better for his future.

Most young mothers, even those who have had the advantage of highly trained maternity nurses to assist them at first, later require authoritative advice about how to treat the baby for whom they have given so much, and to whom they wish to give every possible advantage. Many books give advice to the young mother and to these she may turn. I do not wish to duplicate what they say, but advise every one who has an infant, even if they think they know all about the best method of bringing it up, to possess a copy of Dr. Truby King’s Baby and How to Rear It for reference. It is the most practical, sensible and best illustrated book of its kind.

There is, therefore, on the subject of baby’s material rights not very much more that I need to say, but there is one elementary right very generally overlooked, and that is the right to love in anticipation.

Baby’s right to be wanted is an individual right which is of racial importance. No human being should be brought into the world unless his parents desire to take on the responsibility of that new life which must, for so long, be dependent upon them.

Far too many of the present inhabitants of this earth who are not wanted because of their inferiority, were children who came to reluctant, perhaps horror-stricken, mothers. To this fact, I trace very largely the mental and physical aberrations which are to-day so prevalent; to this also I trace the bitterness, the unrest, the spirit of strife and malignity which seem to be without precedent in the world at present [see also The Control of Parenthood, final section, and, for the remedy, my book, Wise Parenthood, both published by Putnam].

The warped and destructive impulse of revolution which is sweeping over so many people at present must have its roots in some deep wrong.

Revolution is not a natural activity for human beings. Though the revolutionary impulse has swept through sections of humanity many times in its history, it is essentially unnatural, an indication of warping and poisoning, and a cause of further and perhaps irreparable damage.