The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-07-11
Let Babies Cry If They Want To.
(Boston Herald


Things have come to a pretty pass
when woman feels called upon to re-
port a childs cries and complain of
them as a nuisance and demand their
abatement. Infantile shrieks and
squeals are sounds that no one enjoys,
yet one and all feel bound to tolerate
them II for no less a reason than that
there is no other way out of it. If we
considered the matter deeply we would
probably admit that we could endure
them for the sake of ''auld lang syne."
We all beloved and paved the air and
made frightful din when we were
babies. Why shouldn't the baby of to-
day have the privilege of exercising
his or her lungs without neighbors run
ming to town fathers to abate the nuis-
ance?
Nuisance indeed What would have
become of the very woman who has re-
Gently had the temerity to complain of
the disturbing cries which reach her
ears from the back yard adjacent to
her place of business if her bursts of
BABY grief and pain and anger, too,
had been made the subject of public
complaint? Wouldn't the fond mother
who patiently rocked and coaxed her
fretting baby, now this very woman
grown, have considered that the very
foundation of the home was threatened
If it was intimated ever so slightly
that her baby's cries were a disturbing
influence that needed the intercession
of the law? 1 think so, and 1 also
think that several instincts akin to that
which the wild cat displays when her
young seem in any danger would have
been aroused in this mother
1t is better, of course. to bring your
children up in the center of a ten-acre
lot if by any chance you can secure
so much space for their maraudings
You will be saved difficulties of all de-
scriptions which fasten themselves up
on you the moment you become dot
ing parent and which multiply with
the years of your children. And you
will save other folks trouble and suf-
fering. There is no use in denying that
children are pests at certain ages, es-
pecially other peoples children. I should
know what to do with any infant prod
idy that toddled over onto my prem
Uses and set up a howl that made an
investigation of his woes peremptory.
l should try TO pacify him with cook
les and sundry goodies that magically
dry the tears in babies eyes, and then
should lead the child home and let
him vent his lung capacity on his own
people in his own door yard.
But I would hardly know how to
tackle the problem of stopping child's
cries if they came from his own do
main. / should think it was his privi-
lege to cry any way and that his own
domicile made the privilege doubly Sc
cure Then again, what process would
one pursue in abating this nuisance is
a matter that causes me some wonder
ment. Mothers have been searching for
something to quell the squalls of baby
hood ever since babies were. They
have walked the floor, rocked the era
die, pillowed them in their arms and
crooned to them. shaken them when it
seemed to be a fit Of temper and turned
the house topsy turvy in an effort to
clear the atmosphere of the piercing
shrieks that the tiniest lungs can emit |
But without avail The baby cries if
he wants to and that is about all there |
is to it.
You can hand him the cut glass berry !
dish from the sideboard and after he
has shattered it into a thousand pieces |
he will take up the thread of his cry |
ing with renewed ardor. You may rack |
your brains for new means Of amuse- |
ment and new toys to interest the baby |
mind, but they are all as naught if the |
child is bent upon making a loud hula
balo Sometimes one thing may catch |
his fancy and quiet him: sometimes an
other but there are no hard and fast
rules which may be laid down as reli-
able in the task of quieting the crying
baby.
Not even the frown of a judge and
the condemnation of a jury has power
to make him silent. Most of the time
a baby seems to be crying for the
moon. If you can climb up and pull
1t down you may solve the problem of
1uieting his cries. It is about the only
hing that has not been tossed to him
IN the efforts of generations of moth
ers toward this very thing, stopping
MIS- cries. PEGGY QUINCY.