Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1905-09-02
NO TIME FOR BABES.
Social Duties Claim Her Foremost Eff
forts; Ee- Children
Wait


motherhood has been a type and an
ideal. 1t lies at the root OF all the great
world religions-Egyption. Buddhistic.
Christian-and ever images sacred re-
lationship, the strongest of all human
ties; for to each little child the mother
is goddess, whose shrine only her own
hands can deface; whose worship can
alone fall into desuetude by the self
degradation of the deity. Other ties may
grow slack and be disregarded. but the
mother remains a being apart, who is
set in the shrine of the innermost af
fections. whose honor is to her children
the dearest ana most sacred thing on
earth.
Poor little children are they whose
mothers are not nearer to them tbas ali
the world beside. Perhaps even more to
be p1tled are the growing-uD sons and
daughters in these frivolous. pleasure
chasing, undignified days OF ours; DAYS
wherein son looking on finds now and
then ms sense of reverence a trihe
strained, and shade of wondering con-
tempt creeps occasionally into a daugh-
| ter's eyes.
10 treat a child as a pretty plaything
a doll to be tricked out in fancy cos
tunes and kept to please idle guests
when other amusements pail; to use it as
an occasional adjunct to its mothers
scarf or knot of ribbon; to make il self
conscious and conceited by talking about
IL In lts presence; to see it only now and
then when on its best behavior. as in the
case of one self-sacrificing parent who
interviews her family each morning
while her maid dresses her hair, inquiries
whether they have "been good children"
since she saw them last, advises them to
continue in that praiseworthy course.
and then dismisses them from her exist
ence until the same time next day with
feeling that she has done all that the
most exacting critic of parental conduct
can expect; this is hardly a realization Of
the idea of that mother-love whereof
| poets have sung, and painters dreamed.
and which in its deep tenderness, its self
sacrificing unselfshness, its purity ap-
| proacheS more nearly to the Divine than
any other sentiment which finds place
in the human heart and causes the recol-
lection of the mother in the minds of her
| children to be the best dream of early
youth, the best memory of age!'
| The mother who needs to be taught
mother love will never learn the lesson.
! The fashionable women who finds mater
! nifty but an unwelcOme interruption to
| her round of social gaieties, who sees
her children for a perfunctory few min
utes now and then when she can spare
| tlme from more cOngenlal occupations,
who thinks her duty towards them
amply fulfilled when she has provided
them with well-recOmmended nurses and
| gOyernesSes-such Il woman lacks some
! thing from the completeness of her wOm-
! anhood, something which no art can
| supply
Tie multiplicity and whirl of social
engagements are often lamented by wom-
en-, and are put forward as Il reason why
| they are able to see so little of their chill
dren. The fact that the children have
| the prior claim upon their time does not
| seem to occur to them. Society mothers
| take up schemes of all sorts and kinds
| Tor the betterment of their social infer
! lors. They are ON committees innumer-
able, are treasurers of this, and honor
| airy secretaries of that society; they are
like the immortal Mr.. Jellyby-so in
tent upon the moral and social require
ments of Borrioboola Cha, or its equiva-
| Tents, that they have actually no time for
their children. Were there no exceptions
TO this rule, it would be but a gloomy
| outlook for our country's future; but
| there are many mothers who are careful
| to take upon themselves no obligations
that Will interfere with that primary
! duty which no hireling, however CON
| scientious and capable, can fulfill, that
| OF watching over the unfolding of their
children's minds and hearts.
| That so frivolous a deity as Fashion
should influence the expression of mater
nal affection seems improbable. yet we
are told that at the present time it is
the fashion for mothers and children to
be seen together in public whereby
many interesting and, in some cases, ar
tistic presentments of fair women and
pretty children, reminiscent of Sir Josh
ia ana Lawrence, appear in our gal
leries and shop windows.
The mother and child have ever been
a favorite theme in art, though quaint,
indeed. are the Madonnas of medieval
days, yet in them all is recognizable the
effort made by the artist to put promi-
nently forward the idea of the sacred
mother-love. One of the earliest exam
pies known is wall painting in the
| Cathedral of Gurk, Corinthia, where the
crowned Virgin presses the face of her
| infant to her cheek with q tenderness
which gives human interest and beau
ty to the quaint drawing. Later artists
have been content to choose for their
Madonnas the simple peasant mother
with her babe, whose counterpart may
be seen any day in some Italian village,
and who is crowned only with the glory
of her womanhoOd.
1t is to be feared that in good many
cases, certainly. if the question were
to be asked, Are modern mothers too
busy to love their babies?" it would have
TO be answered in the affirmative; per-
haBs the modern craze for athletics,
cycling, anything in fact that takes a
girl outside the walls of her home, have
crowded out those shy deities, the domes-
tie virtues upon whose questionable
affairs but little incense is burnt in the
present day, though the ruder half of
creation is still credited with linger-
ing weakness for their worship
Nevertheless. there are still hopes for
redemption. The worldly woman and
the athletic woman exist, but so does
the home womal, and if she he not TOO
much overwhelmed with household cares,
her children are her first thought. Let