NOW, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH FATHER?
I confess that I am a little tired, and I will say so frankly, of continually hearing such phrases as 'What is home without a mother?' 'God bless our mother!' and so forth. I should like to use an Americanism and ask, 'Now, pray, what's the matter with father?'
I cannot help thinking that children would grow just as sensible if they sometimes heard a word of praise bestowed on their fathers instead of being loaded with an endless litany of all the virtues of mother.
Mother's love, mother's devotion, mother's influence, mother's this, and mother's that. Now, father does exist, and occasionally makes himself useful enough to stand in no need of an apology for daring to exist.
He generally loves his children, and sometimes feels that he cannot compete with his wife in their affections, simply because she monopolizes them, not only when they are babies, but after they are out of infancy. He resents it, but, as a rule, resigns himself to what he is made to believe inevitable.
The first duty of a woman is to teach her children to love their father, and, as they grow up, to teach them to respect him and admire him. It is her duty to hide from her children any little thing that might cause them to lose the least respect or admiration towards him.
But, out of one hundred women, will you find one who will not be of opinion that mother is foremost?
When a woman has become a mother, her vanity, though often full of repose, gets the best of her. She is a mother, and thinks she is the most important thing in the world. Yet, as I say elsewhere, it is no extraordinary testimonial for a woman to be fond of her children. All mothers are fond of their children and good to them—why, even the fiercest and cruellest of animals. The feeling is given to them by Nature. We all profit by it; we are all happier for it. For being able to dispense maternal love woman is to be admired and blessed, but not congratulated. A child is part and parcel of a mother. In loving a child a woman loves part of herself. It is not selfishness so much as self-love. When she brings up her children for herself, for the love of herself, without doing her utmost to see that their father gets his share; when, thanks to her own trumpeting, her house rings only with 'God bless our mother!' she is guilty of an act of terrible injustice.
The vanity of some women is such that some expect a pedestal—nay, an altar—when the spring-cleaning of their house is over.
I know men who work with one view only—that of bringing up their children in comfort, giving them a University education, and starting them in life at the cost of any sacrifice.