Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-06-16
GRAND HAVEN, MICHIGAN WEDNESDAY, 16 1852.

! MOTHERS AND BABIEs.--Mrs Swisshelm, the
Independent and eccentric editor OF the Pitts
burgh Saturday Visitor, has lately had a baby I;
a first baby after being married fifteen years.
As she has habit of writing about everything,
her own affairs as well as those Of other people,
she makes the baby the subject of an editorial.
We quote a passage containing much good
Sense
GA child's infancy-is the period of all 9TH
ers, when motherss care is indispensable to
its comfort. After this is past, her place may
be supplied; but until that time when Hannah
resigned her son to the service of the temple,
no living thing is so dependent as an infant, and
this dependendence is naturally upon the moth
er. She who can disregard this call of nature,
who can Danish her child to the bosom of a
stranger, is not worth talking to. Those ladies
who leave their infants to the care of strangers
while they figure at watering places, and other
fashionable routs and revels, have already still
ed the voice of nature in their breasts, and it is
not very probable that reason and conscience
retain habitaton there. But there is another
class OF women who, strange enough, appears
inclined to reason themselves up to that point
to which those others have fallen, class who
talk of elevating women above the drudgery of
nursing-who habitualy speak of all employ
ments which confne a woman to house as de-
grading, and insist that all such shall be shared
by the other sex. Old dame nature, when let
alone, appears to regulate this matter very nice
ly-to promote an affectionate husband and
father to hold baby when mother is fatigued, or
is at leisure, and in times of sickness to abandon
his avocation if possible to share her cares but
with all this, the baby is the mothers peculiar
care. To her it was especially given, and she
10 al, oh hl, 1Opn
as it is baby. BY the order of nature, she
stands between it and the father! The child is
pre-eminetly hers, and one Of the greatest po-
litical evils of which we have to complain, is
the laws which place the father between the
the mother and her child. One principle reason
why woman needs the elective franchise, is that
she may regain her natural right to her offspring
and the power to choose their surroundings
Let radicals sneer as they will about making a
woman a " mere procreatng machine" her most
important position in life is that of mother, and
around this her wants and duties congregate as
around common center In no other relation
has she so much responsibility, and in no other
does she require so much power. The yearn-
ing affection of mothers heart was given for
childs protection! Its extreme tenderness re-
quires a forbearance which the best trained rea-
soning powers would not accord and all mod
ern plans removing the infant from its mothers
care, to have it systematically brought up in a
congregation of babies, is grand invasion of
the province of nature. If woman be, even
in the lowest degree, fitted for the office Of
mother, even the father of child, be he ever so
judicious, has no right to give directions about
its treatment, except with reference to and def
erence for the wishes of the mother.
A child must get past babyhood before it be-
comes within the sphere of fathers authority.
man should think of this in choosing the
mother Of his children, and be careful to select
one who has sense enough to take care of the
baby, for if she lack it, no wisdom of his can
supply the deficiency"