Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-01-22
LACK OF INTEREST IN THE HOME.
Training of Children Is Often Neglected
and Regretted Too Late.

Training of Children Is Often Neglected
and Regretted Too Late.
There is any amount of good counsel
given to wives and mothers upon the max
ing of n home. But did it ever strike you
how much depends upon the aid and en-
coura cement received from other members
of the household? The greatest difficulty
the anxious mother experiences is to sa-
tisfy the individual tastes which the men,
bers Of her family cultivate, with little re-
gard to the means which exist for their
qualification.
The development OF material things has
gone far beyond the ability to acquire
them, on the part of the majority, and the
parents who have made sacrifices for chill
dren, hoping to win affection and graft
tude. often find neither, but only a spirit of
unrest and of moody dissatisfaction, which
is cherished as a virtue, as an evidence of
finer taste, and dulls the sense of filial duty
and unity of interests.
No home can exist permanently or pleas
antly unless each one contributes his or
her quota to its growth and happiness. A
man who takes himself out of his home,
who spends as little as possible upon it and
all he can upon himself, puts a double bur-
deli upon his wife, and makes a path upon
which at least some of his children will
walk, to their own detriment and that of
the family. There are now large numbers
of lonely women, and men too, who have
brought up families. but have no honored
or recognized place in any home, because
their children have scattered or taken pos
session of the little means they AVE &C.
quired, and taken no pains to provide the
place beside the hearthstone so necessary
to the comfort of old age.
This may or may not be the fault of one
or both of the parents themselves. The
great effort of American parents, and
seemingly a very praiseworthy one, is to
give their children advantages greater than
they themselves possessed. The result of
this is a life long struggle, and too often
the release from all obligation on the part
of the children, who are brought up with
ideas beyond their means, and realize the
failures far more than the efforts of their
parents. Evidently the modern spirit
should have its limitations, and the sacri-
fees not be all on one side, if a Just
equilibrium is to be preserved.
A great element of interest in a home is
doing something for it. Where every one
exercises his or her ingenuity to add to it's
beauty or comforts, there is a sense of per-
sonal ownership and possession and enjoy
ment that is never otherwise experienced.
We have lost something in acquiring mod
ern specialties and specialists in handi-
crafts, and getting rid of the habit which
men and boys had formerly of being
"handy" about the house. Hard earnings
are employed in sending boys to college,
who, when they come home, cannot drive
a nail straight by which to hang up IL pic
tuce, and would consider themselves low
cred by being asked to help put up a stove.
In the same way, girls teach school or try
to find some other way of earning money,
who never cut a shirt or ever an article of
their W clothing, and could not make
one correctly if life hung upon it.-Cor.
Homemaker.