Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1838-05-09
PARENTS DEPARTM ENT.
From the Mothers Monthly Journal
How shall Mothers acquire and retain ar
influence over their Sons

How shall Mothers acquire and retain an
influence over their Sons:
1t is saying to which common expe-
rience has given almost the authority of
an axiom, that "mothers cannot govern
boys" Many boy six or seven years
old is already nearly out of the rams Of
maternal influence, and by the age Of
twelve or thirteen his bold spirit has
broken loose from all it's gentle restraints
and is ruled only by an appea! to the
stronger and sterrer father Most pitia-
bic is the condition of widowed mother
left with family of such sons. The
prospect before her is dark with the hues
of misery. How many such mothers
| may be found whose anxious, sorrow
worn faces are the index of a broken
heart; whose desolate freside, cheered by
no sweet visitings Of affection, witnesses
the mothers silent tears of anguish over
the neglect and unkindness Of her off.
spring.
The evils resulting to the child from
this early loss of maternal influence are
not less fatal to his happiness and virtue
than to the comfort of the mother. There
is rot in the whole group Of domestic
affections one more pure, more ennobIing
than flial love in its perfection, and so 70
train child that this holy sentiment shall
never acquire lis full power to elevate
and bless his nature, is doing him a deep
unkindness. 1t may also be said with
confidence, that the soil from which this
sentiment is uprooted can give birth to no
other of the delicate plants OF serial and
domestic feeling. The son who mocksat
his mother and despises her that bare him
is monster, who under the law of Mo-
SEES, would have been stoned to death as
incorrigibIe, as unfit to remain a member
of the community.
We do not, to be sure, often meet with
a child thus utterly destitute of iIial af-
fiction. In how many families, however,
where all the view of the stranger is fair
and pleasing, do the sons fail 20 exhibit
habitualIy due regard to the feelings
and authority of the mother, and that del
icate~ respect of manner towards her which
is so grateful to the parent, SO lovely in
the child. And in how many more fam
lilies is the mother looked upon with in
d ference by her sons except as the most
efficient minister to their bodily comfort.
She tolls early and late in their service,
she is ever ready to promote their youth.
full pleasures, and they regard her there
fore with a sort of selfish affection, but
she has little. influence over thei: con-
duct, and their plans for life.
How the mother may acquire and re-
tain this influence is question of no
small moment to both parent and child
The limits allowed to this article will
permit the writer to give but few brief
hints upon the subject which has been
suggested by her own observation. ~ .....
1t should be the mothers first anxiety to
win the intelligent love of her child. Why
does an infant always love its mother better.
| is gentlest, her eye beams with fondest
affection; she sooihes his little sorrows.
and bears with his irritabilify, with the
most tender and untiring patience. Let her
continue to be the chief source Of his hap
piness after he has left the DAYS of infancy
and he will continue TO love her best. Let
her still enter with cheerful sympathy into
all his little wants and pleasures, let her
still bear with nnvarVing sweetness and
patience his childish follies, and let her
government. be always mild, and always
reasonable, and she cannot fail of scoring
the Warmest affection of her child and an
ALMOST unlimited influence over him. These
silken threads are harder 70 burst than the
iron chain Of authority. A mother should
Indeed De able to command, and to enforce
obedience; but the child must never feel