The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-10-09
Other Folks Children.

The people in almost every body's ac-
quaintance who know how to entertain
company, and at the same time take care
Of their children suitably, can usually be
counted on the fingers. The children
are to their authors and owners aston
ishlng and delightful circumstances,
revelations of wonder; it is a marvel
that they exist, and how much greater
marvel that they are so lovely, so bright,
so precOcious, that they know black
from white, that they can count three /;
how sweet the little syllables drop from
their lips! how charming is the asser-
ton of their Will how charming that
they have will at all! is all this pos
sible? and is all this theirs? And the
child is not only wOrshiped as q part
Of themselves and possession, but as
subject of delightful awe and mystery in
the very fact of its being.
OF course this is quite right and pleas
ant with our own children; but some
how or other it does not seem half so
right and pleasant with other peoples
children; and they are not half so
charming in the assertion of their wills
when they dispute the seat or the book
with us, while politeness to their elders
makes it rather difficult for us to assert
delightful awe and mystery at all when
they are tumbling all over US with sticky
fingers and daubed faces; when
they burst into our sleeping
rooms in the morning; when
they insist on crowding into the
carriage already full; when they set up
a bawl in the middle of an interesting
conversation, and instead of being
scoOped up and swept out of the room
are eXpOStulated with; when they dis
turb the peace of breakfast, dinner and
tea; when every thing is interrupted by
the demanding of these cherubs, and
every thing is so in allegiance to their
wishes that elderly people seem to have
no rights in the world at all, and the
whole pleasure of ones visit to the par
ents, or the parents visit to ones self,
is destroyed by their presence and be-
haviOr, till we are inclined to believe
that the correct definition of the word
cherub is that other word imp.
OF course parents owe an undisputed
duty to their children, and it is necessary
that the little things should be made
happy; that their proper pleasures
should be unrestricted; that their ques-
tions should be answered; that they
should not be grieved or outraged;
that their lives should be one
long remembrance of happiness as
far as their parents can make
them so. But these same people owe,
also, an undisputed duty to their guests,
when they have guests, and if they can
notperfOrm it, they certainly should not
put themselves in the way of failing in
it by having any guests; and it is Just
as right that the guests should not be
grieved and outraged as that the chill
dren should not be-
Only those people do what is either
agreeable or decent who regard their
guests as wards, for the time being, if
not actively to be nlGCle happy, yet to be
allowed to be happy if they will, and
who take into consideration whether or
not these persons, who are thus at their
mercy, can be happy with other peoples
children tyranniZing over them in the
manner that one may so frequently see
them do. 1t would seem as though
plain common sense must teach people
that their children are not as lovesome
to all the world as to themselves; and
that even if others find them very at
tractive, yet they may weary of what the
natural ties of flesh and blood make it
impossible that they themselves should
ever weary; and that it is to be taken
for granted that certain things are disa-
greeable, and that it is not to be left to
the guest to complain, or else pretend
politely that it is all as it should be, when
trodden and trampled on by parcel of
little wretches without fear of man. One
may be as fond of children as the next
person, but it is always to be undersOOd
that that means children in the right
place, and the right place is never the
first place.-Harper Bazar.