Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1867-05-11
The Inhumanities Of Parents.
Needless DeniaIs.

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l1oi Webster's Dictionary, which cannot be
accused of any leaning toward sentimen
tnlism, defines 'Inhumanity'' as sscruelty
in action )" and cruelty" as &c any act O.
la human being which inflicts unneces
sary pain. "The word "inhumanity" has
so ugly sound, and the most inhuma1
people are so utterly and honestly un
conscious of their inhumanities, that il
is necessary to entrench ones self behind
some such bulwark as the above defini
tion before venturing to open the accusa
tion that fathers and mothers are habit
ually guilty of inhuman conduct in infiict
ing on their children unnecessary pain, D
by needless denials of their innocen,
wishes and impulses. .a a. 49,
Most men and great many women
would be astonished at being told that
simple humanity requires them to graft
fy every wish, even the smallest, of their
children, when the pain of having that
wish denied is not made necessary,
either for the cbild's own welfare, phys
ical or. mental, orlby circumstances be.
yond the parents control. The word
necessary" is very authoritative one
conscience, fleft free, soon narrows down
its boundaries Inconvenience, hindrance,
deprivation, selfdenial, one or all, or even
great deal of all, to ourselves cannot
give us shadow of right to say that the
pain of the child's disappointment is ''nec-
essary." Selishness grasps at help from
the hackneyed sayings that it is ''best
for children to bear the yoke in youth y
The sooner they learn that they cannot
have their own way, the better; it is
good discipline for them to practice self
denial, etc. But the yoke that they must
bear, in spit of our tightening it all we
can, is heavy enough the instances in
which it is, for good and sufficient rea-
sons, impossible for them to have their
own way are quite numerous enough to
insure their learning the lesson very early:
and as for the discipline cf selfdenial--
God bless their dear, patient souls-if
men and women brought to bear on the
thwartings and vexations of their daily
lives, and their relations with each other,
one hundredth part of the sweet acqui-
escence and brave endurance which aver
age children show, under the average
management Of average parents, this
world would be Il much pleasanter place
to live in than it is. p. .
Let any conscientious and tender mo-
ther, who perhaps reads these words
with tears, half of resentment, half of
grief in her eyes, keep ior three days all
exact record of the little requests which
she refuses, from the baby of five, who
begged to stand on chair and look ont
of the window, and was hastily told,
No, it would hurt the chair when one
minute would have been enough time to
have laid folded newspaper over the
upholstery, and another minute enough
to explain to him, with kiss and a hug,
that was to save mammals nice chair
with his boots; and the two minutes to-
gether would probably have made sure
the dear little fellow would look ont for
paper himself when he wished to climb
up to the window /; down to the pretty
girl of twelve, who, with as distinct a
perception of the becoming as her mother
had before her, went to school unhappy
because she was compelled to wear the
blue neck-tie instead of the scarlet one,
and surely for no especial reason! At
the end of the three days, an honest ex-
animation of the record would how that
full one-half of these small denials, all Of
which had involved pain, and some of
which had brought contest and punish
ment, had been needless, had been made
hastily, and usually on account of the
slight interruption or Inconvenience
which would result from yielding to the
request. am very much mistaken if
the honest keeping and honest study of
such three days record would not
wholly transform the atmosphere in many
a house to what it ought to be, and bring
almost constant sunshine and bliss where
now, too often, is storm and misery. e~t
With some parents, although they are
neither harsh nor hard in manner, nor
unloving in nature, the habitual first i'm
pulse seems to be to refuse; they appear
to have singular obtuseness to the fact
that it is, or can be, of any consequence
to child whe.her it does, or does not do
the thing it desires. Often the refussl is
withdrawn on the first symptoms of grief
or disappointment on the child's part; a
thing which is fatal to all real control of
a child, and almost as unkind as the first
unnecessary denial perhaps even more
so, as it involves double and treble pains,
in future instances, where there cannot
and must not be any giving way to en-
treaties. 1t is doubtless this lack of per-
.ception-akin, one would think, to the
phenomenon of color-blindness-whichi is
at the bottom of this great and common
inhumanity among kind and intelligent
fathers and mothers; an inhumanity so
common that, while we are obliged to
look on and see our most beloved people
guilty of it, we find it mex: to impossible
to make them understand what we mean
when we make oitcry over some of its
glayipg instances.
The Subterranea1 City in Asia.
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