Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-26
Your Baby and Mine
BIZ MYRTLE MEYER ELDRED.

(, "If you could only be nice like your
sister. See how sweet she is about
helping mother to set the table and
wash the dishes. Why can't you be nice
like she is, so we would all love you?"
Has a familiar sound, hasn't It?
Some way we wonder why people con-
tinue to think that pointing out some
other persons virtues will stimulate
imitation. Everywhere families are
using this utterly ineffective method Of
| trying to make their children all like
the most satisfying child in the family.
| The most satisfying is the child who
| conforms most easily to the wishes OF
| the adults.
One mother says: MY 11-year-old
| girl Is so bright in school and so am
bilious. She gets her lessons and comes
home and helps me with the house.
| work without a murmur She is very
| saving, also. Her sister, two years
younger, is just the opposite. She is so
mean and whines and grumbles at
everything we ask her to do. I can't
understand why she isn't more like her
| sister"
No doubt from her earliest recollec-
| ton she has had to gaze upon this
paragon of an older sister with admira-
ton. The pose is a little hard to re-
tain. Instead of being loved and APP
| preciated for her very differences, her
own personality has been minimized be-
cause it didn't take the same lines as
| the older sister.
Often it is the other situation. The
| older sister Is made to copy her younger
| sister. The older boy is told If he
would only be as sweet as baby every
one would love him as much. Instead
of inspiring child to initiate the other
child, all these things simply antag-
onize him. He wants to be liked for
himself alone. He wants his good points
stressed and his bad ones ignored. If
| he chooses his older brother or sister as
! pattern it is not because the parents
have told him it is an admirable pattern
| to follow. but because he finds the older
| child so sweet and likable that he longs
| to initiate him. This has to come from
within the child, not from pressure
without.
All that admonitions to be like some
one else have ever done for child is
to make him go farther and farther in
| the opposite direction. He glories in
refusing to help his mother when this
! priggish sister does 1t so sweetly. Let
her do it, thinks he to himself. She
must like to. don't. And SO he up
IlOloS MS own OuIerenCe.
Inside Of him there is a hurt place,
too. He feels that he is to be liked
also and he wants to win his parents
affection without performing what he
considers hypocritical acts.
The parent who grumbles at a child
exhorting him or her to be like some
one else, is certainly blind. for she
| cannot but see that it doesn't work.
One may try anything once, or even
twice, but after that If it is still I'M
successful it is a most unintelligent
person who refuses to change her tao
| tics.
Try another method with the child
in the family whose behavior is an
tagonistic. Begin trying to find some
virtues that can be applauded and
praised even If one has to make a real
effort to find them. There is always
something about every child that can
be drawn out and summed by the fam
lily approval. 1t is surprising how
quickly the bad" child will begin to
live up to these virtues.