The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-03
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
The stern Parent.-2.

HOW gnu SaStA poi CheoA
frightfu1ness really does its victims
we grown-ups can testify from our
own experience. There is not one of
us who can remember being whipped
by our-parents, who does not also re-
call how we hated them for 1t, what
bitterness surged up in our little souls.
and how we despised them for the lies
they were telling us in saying they
were Furnishing us because 1t was their
duty. when we knew they wereA doing
it for their own pleasure and the graf
ification of their own anger.
People who believe that you can
make children good by beating them
belong to the days when people held
that the rack and the thumb screw
were the divinely ordained means of
converting men and women to Chris
tianity. Their only place in the mod
ern world is in Germany, where the
gospel of frightfulness still prevails.
OF course fathers and mothers must
control their children, and they must
have authority over them while they
are still tt o young and have too imma-
ture judgments to regulate their own
lives, but in order to do this, 1t is not
necessary to physically I'll treat them.
nor hold over them a whip as a means
of keeping them in order.
Indeed, this is the worst possible
child to the higher life. There is, aft
er all, such a very short time in which
a child is physically afraid of you,
and, when that is over, and the half
grown boy or girl, realizing that you
are too cowardly to attack those who
are able to defend themselves, no
longer stands in dread of the parental
razor strop, you have no hold what.
ever over them.
Then the boy and girl who have
been kept at home of nights by fear
of beating, defy you to your face and
| and daughter who have been kept
from the ordinary liberties that other
children enjoy, by threats of Whip
ping, take their full of them and
flaunt their newly found freedom in
your face. Nine-tenths of the way
ward girls and boys who go to ex-
| cesses in amusements have been
brought up in strict households by
| stern parents who ruled them by the
rod.
Fear is the mother of lying, deceit
| and all sorts of undetermined dealings
and the children who are reared in
| terror of a whipping for every little
misdemeanor or childish fault, grow
to be sly, cunning and untruthful Nor
can one blame them. 1t is measure
of self protection that their parents
have forced upon them.
brings out all that is most despicable
in human nature, SO Kindness brings
out what is best. Virtues that wither
up and perish in the stony soil OF
cruelty. flourish and bloom when
transplanted into the rich valley oil
tenderness, and everybody, from
hardened criminals down to new born
babies, can be gentl-- led into doing
| the things that no amount of beating
would have driven them into doing.
| 1t is worth while for parents to re-
member this elemental fact in human
nature. They can whip Johnnie and
Mary into doing certain things and
refraining from doing certain Other
things, for a few short years, but
| when Johnnie sld Mary come to tbs
time that they are no longer afraid OF
the whip, the parents power is gone
But if Johnnie and Mary had beer
ruled all their lives by love and kind
ness, if they had been on friendly
terms with their parents and had gone
to father and mother with their con-
fidences, had advised with them and
have deferred to opinions that expert.
ence has taught them had only theil
good in view, why, then fathers ant
mothers influence would not cease. Il
| grows stronger as the children grow
older, and is always the guiding spirit
of their lives. ~
/ And there is this sad thing about tn;
stern parent. He misses all the re-
wards of parenthood. He gets no re
turn for the work and sacrifices tina
| it takes to rear a family, for father
and mothers can only be repaid il
love, and none of US ever love thos'
we fear, or kiss the hand that strike
us.
Any way you look at It. child beat
ing is a poor sport, and it is to b'
hoped that in the future there will b,
few men and women brutal enough Il
engage in 1t.