Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1913 — Of Interest to Women [ARTICLE]

Of Interest to Women

Remarkable Change of Infant of today—New Babyles* Language May Be Responsible—Grandma’s Tale of Daily Care Administered to the “haughty” Imp of 50 Years Ago.

It may be owing to natural progression or to mothers’ meetings, or even to the new babyless language that the modern mother has introduced into the nursery, but for some reason or another infants have changed most remarkably. Fifty years ago a baby in the house made a great deal more fuss and trouble than it does at the present day Judging from an unprejudiced grandnnotheFs ” ffescrlpffoif "of her progeny of long ago, one is forced to the conclusion that they must have been squalling, red-faced little creatures, whose deportment was most ungraceful and undignified. Evidently they were not possessed with an atom of self-respect and usually succeeded in upsetting the whole household. Just ask grandma how her babies used to act. You will be* dr-pessimist before she has had finished her story. She will relate tales that will harrow your soul. Your exhausted ear will hear all about the long nights of croup, when the youngster had to be shaken by the heels, stood on its head, hung opt of the window, slapped on the back, greased about • the nose, poulticed all over and compelled to swallow spoonfuls of suiet melted over a smoky lamp. If they didn’t have croup they had colic, which required trotting apd bouncing and floor walking, rocking the cradle,- not to mention pints of catnip tea. In those days catnip tea was omnipresent There was always a cup of it brewing on the back of the stove in every properly conducted household. When a dose was administered the attendance of the entire family was required. In many cases the farmhands had to be called in to assist It took one person to hold the squirming infant, another to grasp its feet and still another to keep its chubby fists from doing damage to the many faces bending sollcitiously above it. Somebody held the spoon, while mother adjusted one or more extra bibs. When all was ready a cold-blooded relative grasped the slippery little nose and in a twinkling the spoon and its contents were spilled over the bibs and trickling down baby’s neck. If nothing else was the matter, then its food didn’t agree with it, or it was cutting teeth or had broken out in a rash. It was in a chronic state of swallowing tacks and penpies. It was always hungry and never sleepy, except in the daytime, when there was company that particularly wanted to see its eyes. All that day it would slumber so sweetly and afterward make the night hideous with its screams for light or somebody to amuse it.

All the jokes about walking the floor were not jokes at all. Newspap 3r pictures were not caricatures; they were drawn from history and are all that is left to remind us of the oldfashioned baby. The twentieth century infant would not deign to imitate the conduct of its ancestral juvenile. In the first place, more than half the ills that a oaby was heir to in the long ago have been forgotten or have been eliminated; consequently thews is less crying and not nearly so much attention de manded. In the modern baby the imp of the jerverse has been! to a great extent conquered. If it lies awake at night !t is really in pain and not rampaging because its mother is worn out or the poor father unusually sleepy. An investigation of the subject reveals that in these times babies genarally sleep soundly at night, eat reg ularly, take one or more naps during the day and are usually well-behaved, normal children. They do not insist upon being rocked to sleep, nor annoy those within hearing distance by howling ,hour after hour just because they cannot have the electrolier for a toy or the auto horn to cut their teeth upon. The transformation does not seem po remarkable when one gets down to the philosophy of the matter.'Hbw can two human beings act alike, when one Is talked to like this, “Mower’s ’ittle lam, turn det oo mlkl,” and the other is addressed, “Dorothy, come get your milk.” •