Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-02-01
Bv BEATRIcE FAIRFAX.

Have you ever thought what a
tremendous risk child runs in al
lowing itself to be born and there
after become a member of an aver
age household?
Remember, that the child has no
way Of knowing what it is letting
itself in for.
The household may be one where
the child will be given plenty of
room to be himself in, to find "a
hour-a-day happiness. Or it may
be one where the grim people in au-
thority were themselves born grown
up, and who therefore believe in
suppressing all infancy.
The new born baby may find it.
self in the control of parents who
regard children as lower and sub
ject race. Or it may alight among
elders who believe that children are
human beings like themselves.
But it's all so uncertain that one
wonders that the little creatures
have the courage to be born at all.
Isn't it time that all parents had
an understanding as to the part chill
dren should play in the home?
We've all heard a great deal about
the old fashioned idea of keeping
children in their place" This meant
speaking only when they were spok-
en- too, eating what was set before
them and being whipped if they
wandered into any interesting little
by-path of their own discovering,
Being a child in those days must
have been state that one hurried
to grow out of with all ones might
and main.
Simple friendly New England
households used TO say in regard 70
a young girl who came to do the
homework that they made her
zone of the family"
1t seems to me that this is al
most more than could be said of the
old-fashioned child, trained as he
was to believe himself the inferior
of all adults. They simply didn't
make him one of the family.
Juvenile Despotisms.
On the other hand we have seen
households where the children re-
duced their elders to a most unbe-
coming, grovelling sort of slavery,
and disagreeably held the position
of tyrants-households where par
ents had to plead for a chance to
talk or think or pursue their affairs.
There's not much happiness for
anybody in such state of things
as that.
But there's still another way of
handling the child question and
think it is the only way that pro-
duces a really happy household.
This means treating children as it
they could reason-which they can.
1t gives them their own fair share
OF the family responsibilities. 1t
means running the household, not |
like a prison, but like a club.
Try it, and see how it works.
Shall l explain little?
Parents who believe in managing !
their families on the club principle |
resist the temptation of prolonging |
the babyhood of their children. And |
il is a temptation. When these boys
and girls are six years old they are
not treated as if they were three.
Their intelligence is respected.
Their queer, new little personalities
which probably aren't a bit like their
parents, are respected, too, and so
IS their right to express themselves.
Another thing these parents am
speaking Of try not to do is to seize
The whole house for themselves and
keep it unnaturally orderly and 9th
srwise impossible to play in, banish-
ng the children to few untidy
corners.
These people see that the only
square way to do, if you have invit-
ID little people to come out of the