It is very strange that parents, with so many examples which should on the one hand warn them against over-indulgence, and on the other encourage them in the administration of all needed discipline, should not learn to avoid disputes or discussion in the presence of their families. When they so far forget their children’s best interests as to wrangle and dispute whenever a case of discipline is necessary, and allow children and servants to hear and see the whole, they not only lose the respect of those who should naturally look to them for guidance and help, but, more than all, they do lasting injury to those whom they should protect and love. One or two specimens of divided counsels and the mischief is done. Children are quick to observe; they turn to the parent who they learn will be most ready to hide their faults or overlook their short-comings for help to escape punishment, or to secure the gratification of every childish whim; but they soon learn to care little for either parent, for the selfish love of a child who has lost respect and reverence for father or mother is of little value. If the father commands and the mother, openly or privately, cancels the injunction, or the mother permits an indulgence and the father revokes the permission, the child will soon become angry and stubborn; and even if not daring to utter reproach and insolence openly, the spirit of bitterness and revolt is aroused. If parents were seeking to destroy their children, they could scarcely find any means so well calculated to accomplish the object. But the mischief does not end here; the parents themselves become embittered by such dissensions. Sometimes it leads to disputes and quarrels, and sometimes to partisanship; and thus the child’s selfishness, jealousy, and mercenary nature are cultivated. In such divided households better far are early deaths than life and health for children that must otherwise grow up under such malign influences.
If parents cannot see alike, in matters of family government, then they should agree between themselves on some compromise; but in the presence of their children, these differences ought never to be mentioned. Even if one parent is mistaken, it is better far to pass the mistake by, unnoticed, than that a dispute should arise, or that the other parent should interfere in the presence of servants or children. In almost all such cases there is blame on both sides; but, right or wrong, it is better that one should yield instantly and let the other decide, for the time being, than to attempt to right the wrong in the presence of any one, particularly in that of children. It is not hard to do this; and, O parents! if you truly love each other, it should be very sweet and easy kindly and unselfishly to discuss the matter under consideration; but let the husband dismiss during the discussion all idea of authority. It is an ugly word between husband and wife at all times; and in the endeavor to settle a disputed point, if you seek for any good results, keep it as far out of sight as possible. Go to your wife in the same spirit that influenced you while wooing her, and speak with the same tenderness; we think words thus spoken will be like oil on the troubled waters, and bring you into closer and more harmonious union than any commands can do.
But while settling any disputed point with regard to the management of children, it should be constantly remembered by the father that, of necessity, the mother must have more to do with their early years, and can hardly fail to understand their peculiarities better than he can do. It is only a few moments at a time that the father can spend with them, while the mother must watch over them hourly, providing for all their constantly recurring wants. To her belongs, naturally, the care of their health and early habits; to her the watching and weariness in times of sickness, and the harassing toil of nursing them through the fretful period of convalescence, back to soundness and vigor.
In the few hours the father’s business allows him to spend with his family, he may be able to see the weak points more clearly than the mother can do, who must be always with them. He may see plainly how, at times, she weakly yields to their caprices, allowing herself to become a slave to them, often because too weary to be firm. This is the time when his love, tenderness, and sympathy for his wife, the mother of his children, should be most earnestly manifested; when he can prove which is the stronger, which better fitted to be the true head of the house. These weaknesses, from whatever cause they spring, should not be noticed before the little despots; when alone, the husband, with the greatest kindness and gentleness, can show his wife how such indulgence will lay the foundation for much present trouble, and perhaps for a corrupt and disgraceful future. If she has good sense, and he, with unselfish desire for the good of all, does not seek by arrogant dictation to set himself above her, we can hardly imagine a wife and mother who would not earnestly endeavor to make the necessity of such appeals very unfrequent.
But if the mother is frivolous and self-indulgent, too weak and indolent to take up the cross of refusing childish, unreasonable importunities, for the glory that shall crown her when, by her firmness, her children have become noble men and women,—then, God help her who can thus lay the ax to the root of all domestic happiness! For the husband and father to push his authority or command silence with the children at home, constantly exposed to such influences, can do no good; it only increases the difficulty. We know of no better or surer way to save the children than to remove them from home and a weak mother’s cruel indulgence, and place them in some school where health and morals may be carefully watched over, but one sufficiently strict to save them from the evils of too great indulgence. This is a hard task; but it has saved many children whose parents, either one or both, were too foolishly tender or too cruelly indolent to control them, as God has commanded, in their early years.
LX.
HOW CAN WE SECURE GOOD SERVANTS?
MANY inquiries reach us, both from city and country, as to the best and most certain way to secure, if not the best, at least tolerably good servants. It is a question impossible to answer with any degree of certainty. The very best managers, the kindest and most conscientious, are no more sure of being suited than those who work without method, and are not governed by the law of kindness.
“Where shall we apply when searching for help?” is a question that is asked very frequently, and is equally impossible to answer. Some say, “Advertise.” The next will give you such a history of her trials from advertising, as will most effectually frighten you from that mode of help-seeking. But they will tell you to go to one intelligence office, and, if that fails, refer you to the next best. Another will say, as we should, that of all places an intelligence office is the most disheartening and the least reliable of any.
A lady in the country, with a large family, who is so happy as to have two grown-up daughters for her chief assistants, is desirous of “obtaining a raw German or English girl, hoping to be able to train her to do general housework properly,” and inquires where she must apply to obtain such a one, “right from the ship,” before a week or two of idleness has taught her the “ways and the manners” of those who have been in this country longer.
We have very little experience with what are called “greenhorns,” or girls right from the emigrant ships, though we doubt if they can be any more ignorant or half so unmanageable as many of the girls who have been in America for years.