New Homes for Old

by Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge

As long as the mother does not understand this tradition of freedom between the sexes nor realize its limits, it is natural that she should accept her daughter's dictum that everything she wants to do is "American" and that it is hopeless for the mother to try to understand. In many of the families visited in this study it was evident that the mother had completely given up trying to understand either the conditions under which her children work or how they get their recreation. One mother, for example, said that she knew where her daughter worked when it was a well-known place, but otherwise not. Another said that her children told her where they worked, but she never remembered the names, for she knew that they would mean nothing to her.

Several said they did not try to advise their children about their work, because they knew they didn't understand. One Russian mother was very much worried about the future of her two boys, aged seventeen and thirteen. The older was working as a cash boy, earning twelve dollars a week, and the younger was working outside of school hours, sewing caps. The mother said that their father had learned one trade and followed that, but that her children changed work every two or three months. She seldom asked why they changed, because she did not understand conditions in Chicago.

Most of the women confessed to being equally at sea with regard to their children's amusements. Some of them accepted with resignation the fact that they could not understand, saying, as one woman did, that she thought they had too much freedom, but that young people lived very differently here. Some of the mothers, on the other hand, while thinking that young people in general had too much freedom, thought that they did not need worry about their own children, because they had been able to make companions of their daughters. A few even were found who approved of the freedom allowed to young people, but thought children should be taught "more morality."

It is scarcely possible to say too much of the failure of the American community to assist the immigrant family at this point. It has neither tried to make the fathers and mothers understand modern American ways, nor has it exercised any community supervision so that the girl is in reality safe at work and at play. Furthermore, some of the agencies from whom the most help might have been expected have deliberately passed over the mother to educate the child, hastening the process by which the child becomes Americanized in advance of his parents.

The Church has had its share, as may be seen from the statement of one priest who holds a responsible position in the Church in Chicago. He believes that the parents are usually too advanced in years to assimilate or utilize whatever instruction is given them. In his opinion the ignorance of the parent is responsible for many bad tendencies in the children, but the difficulty can be corrected more surely and satisfactorily by dealing directly with the children.

The attitude of the public schools is illustrated by an interview with the principal of a public school in an immigrant neighborhood. He says that his contact has been only with the children. The foreign-born parents of the first generation are, in his opinion, "so incorrigibly stupid" that any attempts to educate them are a waste of time. The only possible way, he thinks, of reaching the parents is through the children.

THE JUVENILE COURT

We should not expect the Juvenile Court, dealing as directly as it does with problems resulting from the breakdown of family discipline, to be itself a cause of breakdown. Nevertheless, interviews with court officers show a certain lack of understanding and the use of methods which, instead of relieving the situation, only aggravate it. When the case of a delinquent girl, for instance, comes to court, the officers believe that it has usually gone too far for the court to do anything with the family. The child is often placed out in a family home, always an American family; and the probation officer supervises the child and the foster home, but pays no attention to the child's own home, where younger children may be growing up in the same way and to which, ultimately, the delinquent girl should be allowed and encouraged to return.

The probation officers know very little of the old-country background of the people with which they deal, and are often not clear as to the differences in nationality. The foreign-born parent's ignorance of laws and customs, and his inability to speak English, make him appear stupid to the officer. As a result, he may be ignored as quite hopeless.

In the absence of the court interpreter the child may be called upon to interpret to the parent the whole proceedings in court. While this is less common now than it was a few years ago, there is no reason to believe that the child is less used as interpreter between the probation officer and the parent at home.