Then did you ever see such a beautiful sight as the watchful and happy mother? Never, if you have all the real feelings of the genuine boy. There must arise that in you which we all feel but cannot explain. Kind words come to you as you watch the happy dog mother; gentle strokes as she cuddles to warm her little babies. And yet there are boys who have so little understood the beauty and wonder of all this act of reproduction that they sniggle and make sport of the desires of the innocent want-to-be-mother dog.
Exactly the same details happen throughout all the animal kingdom. The larger the animal, the longer it takes for the little one to grow and develop in the mother’s womb. This is the only difference, except that in the larger animals we find one or two babies the general rule. You see these big babies require so much milk that the mother could not supply enough for many hungry mouths, so she gives birth to only that number she can well nourish and care for.
[CHAPTER IV]
CARE OF SELF DURING PUBERTY
As the anxious mother bird watches day after day, while keeping her eggs warm, for the sound of the little tapping from the inside followed by the soft bill and wondering eyes of her little ones, so did your mother anxiously watch and pray for the coming of her helpless baby.
In her warm nest, the womb, you lay from the meeting of the two cells until your tiny body was completely formed. This was a period of nine months. Then you were born.
No boy or man can have a full appreciation of all he owes a mother until this wonderful work of nature is thoroughly implanted on his memory, never to be effaced. While the period of watching and waiting is only nine months, to the mother it is a whole lifetime. For to her it means ALL her life—sometimes she gives her life for yours. Think what wondrous love there must be for a woman to run the risk with pleasure and happiness. Every moment of these nine months the mother has her mind upon one thing: the tiny life growing in her womb, nourished by her blood, given oxygen through her breath, brought into the world smiling and laughing because the mother is laughing and smiling. And her one hope is that you will be able to go through your life smiling and laughing; that you will so live and grow that both of you can show to the world the most powerful searchlight known to man: the light which shines from a pure face and healthy mind. And such a light is far more penetrating than you have ever realized. It searches out truth, it reflects your mother’s face even after she has gone; it makes others happy and brings hope to many worried homes. And it is your mother who lights this bright ray of a pure mind; but it is your duty to keep the flame and reflector ever active and shining.
Thousands of boys and men have brought tears and dimmed the once bright eyes of their mothers. They have not consciously done so. It is against all nature for a boy to deliberately inflict pain and grief upon his mother. When he does, it is because he has been ignorant of all his mother has gone through for him. He has never been told in plain talks just all his mother worried and suffered while waiting for him to make his appearance on this earth. He never fully realized how she often dragged herself around weighted with his little body; how her nights were sleepless on his account; how she worked, sacrificed and planned for him. He never knew how careful she was about her food so he might grow strong while in her womb; how she forced herself to walk when every step was an effort, how she tried to keep her mind upon pleasant subjects and to read only such books as might send pleasant and beneficial impulses to his then unconscious mind.
When you have reached eight or ten years of age you have never been told how careful you should be to use kind words and be ever on the watch to help your mother in little things, because there is a little sister or brother growing in your mother’s womb who will soon be in the cradle. No, you have of course been told to be always kind to her; to help her in little matters; but JUST why you should now be more careful than usual has been kept from you. So if you have been cross and disobedient at times; brought tears to your mother, and who knows but unconscious tears to the little unborn one, you are not wholly to blame. You didn’t know, and nine times out of ten, if you asked questions about how babies come, you were put off with queer answers or else told not to ask such questions. The fault has been in a wrong idea of instruction. Your mother was never allowed to know when she was a child; your father picked up what knowledge he could from older boys, which was generally wrong knowledge gathered from another generation of boys, and your teachers and those of your parents were either criminally silent or themselves ignorant.