Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1912 — Modern Parents [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Modern Parents

Often Warned Against Any Undue Severity

By P. EVAN JONES

W T IS a thankless task to be a parent in these exacting days, and I I wonder now and then at the temerity which prompts man or woman to assume such hazardous duties. Time was. indeed, when parents lifted their heads loftily in the world, when they were held to be, in the main, useful and responsible persons; when their authority, if unheeded, was at least unquestioned, and when one of the ten commandments was considered to indicate that especial reverence was their due. These simple and primitive convictions lingered on so long that some of us can perhaps remember when they were a part of our youthful creed, and when, in life and in literature, the lesson commonly taught was that the province of jjhe parent is to direct and control, the privilege of the child is to obey, to be exempt from the pninful sense of responsibility which overtakes nim in later years. The children have many powerful advocates, while the parents stand undefended and suffer grievous things. It must surprise some of them occasionally to be warned so often against undue severity. It must amaze them to hear that their Iflzy little boys and girls are suffering from overwork and in danger of mental exhaustion. It must amuse them—if they have any sense of humor—to be told in the columns of the weekly paper, “How to Reprove a Child,” just as they are told “How to Make an Apple Pudding.” ' As for the discipline of the nursery, that has become a matter of supreme importance to <dl whom it does not concern, and the suggestions offered, the methods urged are so varied and conflicting tliat the modern mother can be sure of one thing only—all that she does is wrong. The most popular theory appears to be that whenever a child is naughty it is his parent's fault, and she owes him prompt atonement for his misbehavior. We should be astonished, if not appalled, if we could see in figures the number of times the average child is unnecessarily censured during the first seven years of life. Punishment is altogether out of favor. Its apparent necessity arises from the ill-judged course of the father or mother in refusing to a child control over his own actions. I once knew a father who defended himself for frequently thrashing an only and idolized son—who amply merited each chastisement—by. say-

ing that Jack would think him an idiot if he didn’t. That father was lamentably ignorant of much that it> behooves a father now to acquire. He had probably never read a single Rook designed for the instruction and humiliation of parents. He was in a state of barbaric darkness concerning the latest theories of education. But he knew’one thing perfectly, and that one thing is slipping fast from the minds of men—namely, the intention of the Almighty that there should exist for a certain time between childhood and manhood the natural production known as a boy.