The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-01-02

recent antidote for the bad dreams is to keep the
poor little tot up until or 10 o'clock at night so
that he may get thoroughly tired and sleepy" 1t
seems almost incredible that a mother otherwise
intelligent, could be SO criminally ignorant, and
vet this tragedy goes day by day IN that home.
A medical specialist on children's diseases told
me that during days calls upon sick children
not one of them years old-he found their illness
due in four to drinking coffee at breakfast;
in three cases the mothers had permitted the eat
ing of pie, and in another case child OF > IN
family of eminently respectable and intelligent peo-
pie was i'll because her mother had lust for the
cuteness of it, given her two glasses OF beer. 1T
was so cute to sec her hold the big foaming glass
and watch her drink it, and,' added the mother
with pride with relish, too, Doctor. child was
"a bit upset." according to his mother, not long
ago The doctor discovered that during the previ-
Gus day the little tot of had been allowed to eat
at "a chidrcn's party" "a plate of soup, four
pickles beefstcap two helpings of corn pudding,
three large pieces of eggplant fried i'll fat, some
lobster salad, two hepings of ice cream, some nuts
| and candy" The doctor privately wondered that
the child alive, and yet the mother assured the
doctor that her chid's illness could not be due TO
his food-and this after she had narrated the pre-
vious days eating. "Of course" she explained, 1T
may sound if it great deal for Bobble
to eat, but he is such hearty boy that he de-
mands it." Yet the boy has, according to the doc
tor. a strength far below normal; he is ten pounds
below weight and his sleep is of disturbed or
/ der.
Nor is this maternal ignorance confined to the
diet of children. Consider for moment, the nerV-
| Gus injury done to thousands of little children by
their attendance at those juvenile horrors called
H'childrens parties" Far closer to the truth would
it be 10 call them 'chidrens graves" In vain have
physicians cried out against these breeders OF chill
! drens nervous troubles; in vain have writers writ
ten against them. The only point of view that the
| ignorant mother sees is her conception OF the
! pleasure of her child as the poor little tot Is
dressed up (Which no healthy child ever wants to
/ be- and then tumbled into the midst of roomful
! of nervous, pent-up, shrieking children The lit
| tie one becomes all heated and then the crazlest
part in the tragedy occurs when deluge of cold
! ice cream and indigestible sweets IS fed to HIM.
! When the child gets him he "droops" from the
good time" and is wakeful all night and languid
and disprited all the next day, if not positively
i'll. And yet the mother wonders why her child Is
nervous; why he starts and Jumps in his sleep; why
/ he has no appetite, and why he is not as full OF
/ healthy romp and play the child next door
that poor little one who is allowed to go
to childrens parties y! 1t is pity that the trag-
edies of ':childrens parties are not more lntelll-
| gently understood. To no other form of unwlse,
| juvenile indulgence parental misunderstanding
is perhaps so directly traceabe the nervous condl-
ton of thousands of little ones
We are taught to believe that every normal wo-
man has the instinct of motherhood within her.
But fact would seem to justify the doubt whether
that instinct is always accompanied by either the
average Intelligence the simplest common sense.
1t is not meeting the to say that mother does
not know. She cannot be excused on that score.
We are living at a period when child-study has
received much, if not more, attention than at
any time in the history of the world. The seat
of the trouble lies in the unwilingness of the
age mother to devote that of necessary time
to her child which the wise training of child calls
for. 1t is always a poor argument that harks back
to times that are past~and to conditions that eX-
| listed generation ago. There is not less nelli-
gence among women today than there fifty
years ago. But the mother of fifty years ago had
one advantage over the mother of today: she gave
her life up more unreservedly to the child which
she brought into the world There we're fewer dis
fractions for women, and naturally the mind and
heart of a mother centered themselves more di-
rectlT upon the things closest to her.
1t is ever unkind, if not unjust, in any stric
lures of shortcomings in motherhood to include
the woman who, without help of any kind is asked
TO look after the affairs of her home, single handed
and rear houseful of children | am not an adj
vocate of small families but neither am | an adj
mirer of that type of who asks woman to
bring up from five to eight children regardless of
her strength, irrespective of his ability to pro-
vide suitable help for her. That man assumes a
heavier responsibility than his mind sometimes
seems to take IN who asks his wife to care for a
larger family than her mental or physical strength
can stand. or whose resources make it impossihe
TO relieve his wife of the whole daily burden of a
large family. No would seek by thought or
word to deprive the poor of the pleasurable com
partnership of children, bat there is something due
to woman which men seem to be incapable
of compromising. A woman can do Just SO much
She has not any more hands than man; there
are not any more hours in her day than in his al
though, God knows, many woman works over
time without thanks from her husband who is
never slow TO exact double pay for the same amount
of overtime where it is asked of him by his en-
| ployer.
The mother who is at fault for the lack of in
teligent of her child is she who has the time
and the intelligence to give to his every need, but
who chooses to dissipate her energies in divers
channels TO the neglect of her cliild. Such women
unfortunately, are none TOO rare. No man, be he
physician whatever his calling, can accurately
fix the ratio of real mothers That is a computa-
ton beyond human ken But that ignorance of
common sense child training exists all too much
{ today among intelligent mothers who have plenty
of leisure cannot be gainsaid. For such there is nc
excuse On the contrary. the responsibility rests
indeed heavy upon them if they do not meet in the
most minute sense, the fullest obligations of low
ing, devoted and intelligent motherhood. The train
ing of child should be the training of the moth
err the fullest lost of self in the child; not to the
exclusion of home or husband for such is only
selfish motherhood and loss of wifehood But moth
erhood that is motherhood counts the call of the