Evening star., 1932-01-24

make a change, and move into th'
country.
Every child ought to spend his frs
Is years close to the good warm earth
with a backyard, an apple tree, barn
a windmill, fields, fences, stables
horses, dogs, swimming hole-or a.
least some of these things for his en-
vironment. No mother of small boy
knows whether he is good or bad, whilt
he is boxed up in an apartment. Per-
sonally, 1 would have small hope fol
any little fellow who could be well be-
haved and content in such surround,
| ings. Any spirited and normal chile
is a constant anxiety and responsible
! ity to his parents in city streets. They
| do him lifelong injustice If they un-
necessarily keep him there.
Some children, moving between sub.
way, school room and the four narrow
| walls of a five-room apartment become
actually unmanageable and delinquent
| One boy, reported to the juvenile courts
| used to burst out, in midmorning, with
i long scream. The teacher couldn't
| stop him. Shout he would, morning
after morning, great deep-lungeo
"Oh-h-h-h!" of protest against close
air. silence, physical Stiffness over the
agonizing need for concentration on
| what bored him. So they arrested him
Mothers and fathers who are fretted
by the children's reStlessness, unhappi-
ness, pale cheeks, listleSsness or
noisineSs, impudence, tagging appetites
and complete lack of interest in either
home or play-children who want radio,
comics and movies, and nothing else,
and to whom the suggestion of nice
long walk or good brisk run about the
reservoir is an unmitigated annoyance
can cure the situation of nine-tenths of
its strain and worry by simply getting
out into the open spaces, and giving
the children room to grow and spread
as these valuable human plants should
grow and spread.
WOMEN write ME of unmanageable
w children, and their letters make
my heart contract in spasms of pain
and regret. 1t is all so unnecessary;
this agony of fretting and discipline,
scoldtng and telling -your-father," sui
lenness and disobedience and material
despair, and child despair, which Is
SO much worse than anything we
grown-upS ever know
To let child think he is naturally
bad or stupid, to let him see that he is
burden upon his parents, and that
he presents problem they admit they
cannot solve, is often to do him an in
jury that will last him for life. A sense
of deficiency, of inferiority, will never
leave him, even though times get better
In 1882, and money is easier, and dad is
less tired at night. and mother less
overworked and anxious.
If you can't get the boys and girls
t,,N {rry +N
to send them there frequently for quiet
week ends, for Thanksgiving and
Christmas holidays. Send them down
to Aunt James on Long Island, or up to
Uncle Wills in Connecticut, or pay
some good plain country woman board
for them during their free days.
X X
DUT the chances are you can get into
ID the country, if you want to, but that
you are afraid. A cramped dark little
city apartment sounds cheaper, in the
long run, than struggling country
place. Light, hot water, janitor service
in halls, steam heat, quick telephone
service, gas stove; these are great COM
forts to the servantleSs woman, and al
though they mean that the splendid
little growing bodies of the children
spend hours and hours in the hot
kitchen, and sleep in the dining room
still, mother trembles at the thought of
moving out into New Jersey, or up over
the borders of Connecticut, where there
are still fruit trees and lanes, still
barns and ladders and ropes and wheels
and pumps and chestnuts and lazy
brooks. 1t certainly might mean coal
fires again. II one got a really low
rent, it might mean lamps, primitive
sanitary arrangements, mud, no tele-
phone, movies half mile away. and no
delicatesSen into which to turn, on the
way home from the beauty parlor, for
emergency supplies that will keep the
family from knowing that mother was
out all day.
Father will not consider committing,
anyway. 1t is perfectly astonishing to
me how many good men calmly put
this trifling and selfish excuse between
themselves and their childrens good.
Briefly, almost proudly, they exclaim
that nothing will induce them to COM
mute, and when, that same night,
mother reports such INSTRUMENTATION
on the part of scared little junior that
good thraShing seems necessary, they
promptly seize the little city-poisoned
boy. and punish him with vigor en-
hanced by their own fatigue, hunger
and worriment, and their own share OF
| bad city air.
THOSE parents who must live II
Il small city quarters ought to TAKE
an apologetic attitude toward their chill
dren, and lose no chance to get then
| into parks and onto beaches, out tt
open places for picnics and long quie
hours. They ought to do their hom'
work with them at night, gather theil
friends for hospitable evenings O.
| games and talk when Winter shut
down, and make every possible excus'
when the irrepressible energies Of child
hood burst all hounds, and take strang
and troublesome forms
The other parents, the ones Wit
could move, ought to begin to rang
through country towns and villages OF
the next clear Sunday. They must ex
pect to get at least an hours trip ava,
from the city hall, before they vii
find low rents; dad will have to recon
cile himself to hours and "a minute
in the train every day, coming ant
going.
What of it? He can sit warm an,
comfortable, rushing through scener,
that Europeans would pay good dea
just to see-he can pay that much 70
his fatherhood. Men too often thin
they can become the proud possessor
of "our boy, our girl and the little one,
without sacrificing anything for thi
incalculable privilege. Let them pay
for after all, children are a gilt-edge
investment.
| X
A VERY short test will convince hir
- that the change has been wort
] while ct him SDend his week ends n
his own place, with his children, /
that riotous welter of old wagons an
ropes, Greenhouses and earth caves, In
dian tepees and pirate lairs, guinea
pigs, kittens and puppies, vegetab
garden, ounce tree, chicken run; in
word, In typical American backyard
rAch as many of LIS knew 20 and 30 an