The home: its work and influence

As one immediate physical condition, examine the dress of these babies and young children; this among parents of wealth, and, presumably, intelligence. See the baby in the perambulator so rolled and bedded in, so tucked and strapped, that he cannot move anything but perhaps a stiffly projecting arm. Think of an adult cocooned in this manner, unable to roll, stir, turn, in any way relieve the pressure or change the attitude. And, when you have considered the sensations of a tough and patient adult frame, think further of those of a soft, tender, active, and impatient baby body.

The dress of a baby or little child bears no relation to his immediate comfort or to the needs of his incessant growth. Among our wisest parents there is to-day a new custom, happily increasing, of barefoot freedom, of dirt-proof overalls, of a chance for beautiful, unconscious growth; but this does not reach the vast majority of suffering little ones. It does not spread because of the seclusion and irresponsible dominance of the separate home; and further – because of the low-grade intelligence of the home-bound mother.

She whose condition of arrested development makes her unquestioningly submit to the distortion, constriction, weight, and profusion of fashion in clothing for her own body, is not likely to show much sense in dressing a child. Beautiful fabrics, rich textures, expensive adornments, she heaps upon it. She wishes it to look pretty, according to her barbaric taste; and she disfigures the grave, sweet beauty of a baby face, the lovely moving curves of the little body, with heavy masses of stiff cloth, starched frippery, and huge, nodding, gaily decorated hats that would please an Ashantee warrior.

If some cartoonist would give us a copy of the Sistine Mother and Child in the costume of our mothers and children, showing those immortal cherub faces blinking obliquely from under flopping hat brims and rich plumes, perhaps we might in sudden shocked perception see with what coarse irreverence we disfigure our blessed little ones.

The child does not find in the home any assurance of health, beauty, or free growth. He, and especially she, must wear the dainty garments on which our misguided mother love so wastefully lavishes itself; and must then be restricted in all natural exercise lest they be torn or soiled. To dress a little child so that he may be perfectly comfortable, and grow in absolute freedom, has not occurred to the home-bound mother.

Neither has she learned how to feed it. If the home is the best place for children, if the home is the best place for the preparation of food, would it not seem as if in all these long, long years we might have evolved some system of feeding little children so as to keep them at least alive – to say nothing of their being healthy?

The animal mother, guided by her unspoiled instinct, does manage to feed her young, and to teach it how to feed itself. The human mother, long since cut off from that poor primitive guidance, and proudly refusing to put knowledge in its place, feeds the baby in accordance with her revered domestic traditions, and calls in the doctor to remedy her mistakes. One man, in Buffalo, has recently saved fifteen hundred babies in a year, lowering the annual death rate by that amount, by public distribution of directions for preparing milk. He was not a mother. He was not shut up in a home. He studied and he taught in the light of public progress, in a growing world; and succeeded in filtering some of this saving knowledge into the darkness of fifteen hundred homes.

The average child is not fed properly; and there is nothing in the home to teach the mother how. She must learn outside, but she is not willing to. She still believes, and her husband with her, in the infallible power of "a mother's love" and "a mother's care"; and our babies are buried by thousands and thousands without our learning anything by the continual sacrifice. This is owing to the isolation of the home. If there were any general knowledge, general custom, association, comparison; if mothers considered their enormous responsibility as a class, instead of merely as individuals, this could not be. Knowledge and experience have to be gathered by wide and prolonged study; they do not come by an infinite repetition of the same private experiments.

We have to-day the first stirring of this great multitude of separately concealed experimenters toward that association and exchange of view, that carefully recorded observation, that reasonable study, which are necessary for any human advance. Our mothers are beginning to come out of their isolation into normal human contact; to take that first step toward wisdom – the acknowledgment of ignorance; and to study what little is known of this new science, Child-culture.

But it is only a beginning, very scant and small, and ridiculed unmercifully by the great slow dead-weight of the majority. The position of the satirist of modern motherhood is a safe and easy one. To ally one's self with the great mass of present humanity, and the far greater mass of the past, of all our hoary and revered traditions, and to direct this combined weight against the first movement of a new idea – this is an old game. Humanity has thus resisted every step of its own progress; but, though it makes that progress difficult and slow, it cannot wholly prevent it.

If the home and the home-bound mother do not ensure right food or clothing for the child, what do they offer in safety, and in the increasing educational influence which early environment must have? As to safety – the shelter of the home – we have already seen that even to the adult the home offers no protection from the main dangers of our time: disease, crime, and fire or other accident. The child not only shares these common dangers, but is more exposed to them, owing to more absolute confinement to the home and greater susceptibility. Whatever we suffer from sewer-gas, carbonic dioxide, or microbes and bacteria, the child suffers more.

He breathes the dust of our carpets, and eats it if we do not watch him. "I can't take my eyes off that child one minute," cries the admiring mamma, "or he'll be sure to put something in his mouth!" That a perfectly clean place might be prepared for a creeping baby, where there was nothing whatever he could put in his mouth, has never occurred to her. The child shares and more than shares every danger of the home, and furthermore suffers an endless list of accidents peculiar to his limitations. Even our dull nerves are roused to some sort of response by the terrible frequency of accidents to little children.

I have here a number, taken from one newspaper in one city during one year; not exhaustive daily scrutiny either; merely a casual collection:

"Mother and Baby Both Badly Burned." A three-year-old baby this – a match, a little night-dress flaming, struggle, torture, death! "Choked in Mother's Arms" is the next one; the divine instinct of Maternity giving a two-year-old child half a filbert to eat. It was remarked in the item that the "desolate couple" had lost two other little ones within two months. It did not state whether the two others were accidentally murdered by a mother's care.

"Child's Game Proved Fatal" is the next. Three-years-old twins were these; "playing fire engine in the parlour while their mother prepared the midday meal."

One climbed on the table and lit a newspaper at a gas jet, and set fire to the other. It is then related "Both children cried out, but their mother, thinking they were only playing, did not hasten to find what was the matter." "The child died at 3 P.M." is the conclusion.

"Accidentally Killed His Baby" follows. The fond father, holding his two-year-old son on his knee, shot and killed him with a revolver "which he believed to be empty."

"Escaping Gas Kills Baby" – "Boy Has Cent in His Throat" – "Insane Mother's Crime" – "Drowns her Eight-year-old Daughter" – and here a doctor says, "It would be an excellent idea for every family to have a little book giving briefly prompt antidotes for various poisons. Physicians know that there are scores of cases of accidental poisoning never heard of outside the family concerned. I've had several cases of poisoning by an accidental dose of chloroform and aconite liniment, and one woman gave her child muriatic acid that was kept for cleaning the marbles."

Another "Mother and Child Burned" – "Child Scratched by a 60-foot Fall" – (this one was saved by striking several clothes-lines after she fell out of the window) – "Kitten was Life Preserver" – another fall out of a window, but the child was holding a kitten, and her head struck on it – so only the kitten was smashed.

"A Governor's Child badly Hurt" – "will probably prove fatal," this was a two-story drop over a staircase; and shows that it is not only in the homes of the poor that these things happen. Another "Baby Burned" follows – this poor little one was left strapped into its carriage, and set fire to by an enterprising little brother.

"Tiny Singer Fell Dead" describes a five-year-old boy as singing a selection from "Cavalleria Rusticana" as a means of entertaining a party of young friends – and burst a blood-vessel in the brain. Then there is a story of a grisly murder in which a tiny child testifies as to seeing her father kill her mother; the child was not hurt – physically. And then a bit of negative evidence quite striking in its way, describing "The Mother of Twenty-five Children" and incidentally stating "of these only three sons and four daughters are now living." Seven out of twenty-five does not seem a large proportion to survive the perils of the home.

These are a few, a very few, instances of extreme injury and death. They are as nothing to the wide-spread similar facts we do not hear of; and as less than nothing to the list of minor accidents to which little children are constantly exposed in the shelter of the home. We bar our windows and gate our stairs in some cases; but our principal reliance is on an unending watchfulness and a system of rigid discipline. "Children need constant care!" we maintain; and "A child must be taught to mind instantly, for its own protection." A child is not a self-acting poison or explosive. If he were in an absolutely safe place he might be free for long, bright, blessed hours from the glaring Argus-eyed watchfulness which is so intense an irritant. Convicts under sentence of death are in their last hours kept under surveillance like this, lest they take their own lives. Partly lest the child injure himself among the many dangers of the home, and partly lest he injure its frail and costly contents, he grows up under "constant watching." If this is remitted, he "gets into mischief" very promptly. "Mischief" is our broad term for the natural interaction of a child and a home. The inquiry of the young mind, and the activity of the young body, finding no proper provision made for them, inevitably fall foul of our complicated utensils, furniture, and decorations, and what should be a normal exercise becomes "mischief."

Our chapter of accidents here leads us to the great underlying field of education. Say that the child lives to grow up, during these wholly home-bound years; in spite of wrong clothing, wrong feeding, and the many perils we fatuously call "incident to babyhood" (when they are only incident to our lack of proper provision for babyhood). If he battles through his infancy and early childhood successfully, what has he gained from his early environment in education? What are the main facts of life, as impressed upon every growing child by his home surroundings?

The principal fact is eating. This he learns perforce by seeing his mother spending half her time on that one business; by seeing so much house-space given to it; by the constant arrival of food supplies, meat, groceries, milk, ice, and the rest; and excursions to get them. The instincts of early savagery, which every child has to grow through, are heavily reinforced by the engrossing food-processes of the home.

They do not necessarily please him or her, either. The child does not grow up with a burning ambition to be a cook. Whether the ever-present kitchen business was run by the mother or by a servant, it was not run joyously and proudly; nor was it run in such wise as to really teach the child the principles of hygiene in food-values and preparation. If the family is a wealthy one the child is not allowed in the kitchen perhaps, but is the more impressed by the complicated machinery of the dining-room, and that elaborate cult of special "manners" used in this sacred service of the body. Thus and thus must he eat, and thus handle his utensils; and if the years and the tears spent in acquiring these Eleusinian mysteries make due impression on the fresh brain tissue, then we may expect to find the human being more impressed by the art of eating than by any other.

And so we do find him. The children of the kitchen are differently affected from the children of the dining-room. These last, of our "upper classes," receive the indelible stamp of the tri-daily ritual, and go through the rest of life thinking more highly of "table manners" than of any other line of conduct, for the reason that they were more incessantly, thoroughly, and importunately taught that code than any other. To handle a fork properly is insisted upon far more imperatively than to properly handle a temper.

The principal business of the home being the care of the body, and this accomplished through these archaic domestic industries, the unending up-current of young life, which should so steadily purify and uplift the world, in every generation is steeped anew in this exaggeration of physical needs and caprices.

Beyond the overwhelming cares of the table the other home industries involve the care and replenishment of furniture and clothes. Hour after hour, day after day, the child sees his mother devoting her entire life to attendance upon these things – the daily cleaning, the weekly cleaning, the spring and fall cleaning, the sewing and mending at all times.

These things must be done, by some people, somewhere; but must they be done by all people, that is by all women, the people who surround the child, and all the time? Must the child always associate womanhood with house-service; and assume, necessarily assume, that the main business of life is to be clean, well-dressed, and eat in a proper manner?

If the mother is not herself the house-servant – what else is she? What does the growing brain gather of the true proportions of life from his dining-room-and-parlour mamma? Her main care, and talk, is still that of food and clothes; and partly that of "entertainment," which means more food and more clothes.

Can we not by one daring burst of effort imagine a home where there was still the father and mother love, still the comfort, convenience, and beauty we so enjoy, still the sweet union of the family group, and yet no kitchen? Perhaps even, in some remote dream, no dining-room? Where the mother was a wise, strong, efficient human being, interested in and working for the progress of humanity; and giving to her baby, in these sweet hours of companionship, some true sense of what life is for and how it works. No, we cannot imagine it, most of us. We really cannot. We are so indelibly kitchen-bred, or dining-room-bred, that mother means cook, or at least housekeeper, to our minds; and family means dinner-table.

So grows the child in the home. In the school he learns something of social values, in the church something, in the street something; from his father, who is a real factor in society, something; but in the home he learns by inexorably repeated impressions of every day and hour, that life, this deep, new, thrilling mystery of life consists mainly of eating and sleeping, of the making and wearing of clothes. We are irresistibly reminded of the strange text, "Take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." A little difficult to follow this command when mother does nothing else!

XIII

THE GIRL AT HOME

What is the position of the home toward us in youth? We have seen something of its effect upon the child, the wholly helpless child, who knows no other place or power. We have seen something of its effect upon the woman in her life-long confinement there. Between childhood and maturity comes youth; holding what is left of the child's pure heart and vivid hopes, and what begins to stir of man's or woman's power. The gain of a race, if there is a gain, must make itself felt in youth – more strength, more growth, more beauty, a larger conscience, a sounder judgment, a more efficient will.

Each new generation must improve upon its parents; else the world stands still or retrogrades. In this most vivid period of life how does the home meet the needs of the growing soul? The boy largely escapes it. He is freer, even in childhood; the more resistant and combative nature, the greater impatience of pain, makes the young male far harder to coerce. He sees his father always going out, and early learns to view the home from a sex-basis, as the proper place for women and children, and to push incessantly to get away from it.

From boy to boy in the alluring summer evenings we hear the cry, "Come on out and have some fun!" Vainly we strive and strive anew to "keep the boys at home." It cannot be done. Fortunately for us it cannot be done. We dread to have them leave it, and with good reason, for well we know there is no proper place for children in the so long unmothered world; but even in danger and temptation they learn something, and those who struggle through their youth unscathed make better men than if they had been always softly shielded in the home.

The world is the real field of action for humanity. So far humanity has been well-nigh wholly masculine; and the boy, feeling his humanity, pushes out into his natural field, the world. He learns and learns, from contact with his kind. He learns about all sorts of machinery, all manner of trades and businesses. He has companions above him and below him and beside him, the wide human contact in which we grow so rapidly. If he is in the city he knows the city, if he is in the country he knows the country, far more fully than his sister. A thousand influences reach him that never come to her, formative influences, good and bad, that modify character. He has far less of tutelage, espionage, restraint; he has more freedom by daylight, and he alone has any freedom after dark. All the sweet, mysterious voices of the night, the rich, soft whisperings of fragrant summer, when the moon talks and the young soul answers; the glittering, keen silence of winter nights, when between blue-black star-pointed space and the level shine of the snow stands but one living thing – yourself – all this is cut off from the girl. The real intimacy with nature comes to the soul alone, and the poor, over-handled girl soul never has it.

In some few cases, isolated and enviable, she may have this common human privilege, but not enough to count. She must be guarded in the only place of safety, the home. Guarded from what? From men. From the womanless men who may be prowling about while all women stay at home. The home is safe because women are there. Out of doors is unsafe because women are not there. If women were there, everywhere, in the world which belongs to them as much as to men, then everywhere would be safe. We try to make the women safe in the home, and keep them there; to make the world safe for women and children has not occurred to us. So the boy grows, in the world as far as he can reach it, and the girl does not grow equally, being confined to the home. In very recent years, within one scant century, we are letting the girls go to school, even to college. They pour out into the larger field and fill it at once. Their human faculties have some chance to grow as well as the over-emphasised feminine ones; and in our schools and colleges youth of both sexes finds the room, stimulus, and exercise it could not find at home.

The boy who does not go to college goes to business, to work in some way. To find an able-bodied intelligent boy in a home between breakfast and supper would argue a broken leg. But girls we find by thousands and thousands; "helping mother," if mother does the work; and if there are servants to do the work, the girl does – what?

What is the occupation of the daughter of the house? Let us suppose her to be healthy. Let us suppose her to have a fair share of ability and education. She has no longer the school or the college, she has only the home. Not that she is physically confined there. She may go out by daylight, giving careful account of her steps, and visit other girls in their homes. She may receive visits, both from girls and boys; and she may go out continually to all manner of entertainments. Perhaps she is expected to dust the parlour, to arrange the flowers, to "keep up her music." She has enough to eat, enough and more than enough to wear; but what exercise has she for body or brain? Perhaps in games and dances she keeps her body active – but what sort of occupation is that for a young human creature of this century, a creature of power? The young woman has the same race inheritance of ability, the same large brain-growth, as the man. The physical improvement of our times is reflected in them too; fine stalwart girls we see, tall, straight, broad-shouldered. She has had, in specific education, the same mental training as the boy.

How would her brother be content with a day's work of dusting the parlour and arranging the flowers; of calling and being called on? Amusement is good, sometimes necessary; best and most necessary to the tired, unhappy, and overworked. But youth – healthy, happy, and vigorous, full of the press of unused power and the accumulating ambition of all the centuries – why should youth waste its splendour in such unsatisfying ways?

If you ask the father, he will merely say that it is the proper position for a girl; he is "able to support her," she does not "have to work," she can amuse herself, and as for a field for her abilities – she will find that in her own home when she is married. Ask her mother – and she will tell you, making a sad confession all unknowingly – "let her enjoy herself now; she will have care enough later." There is a tacit agreement that girls shall have all the "good time" possible while they are girls, that they may have it to remember! Does this "good time" satisfy the girl? Is she happy in her father's home, just passing the time till she moves into her husband's?

Sometimes she is. Her education has been strong to make her so. The home atmosphere of predominant clothes and food has been about her from the cradle, and she still has clothes and food, and may elaborate them without limit. She may devote as much time to the adornment of the table as she wishes; and if her inclination take her also to the kitchen, perhaps even to the cooking school, that is more than well. She may also devote herself to the parlour and its adornment; but most naturally of all to the adornment of her own young body – all these are proper functions of the home. She may love and serve her immediate dear ones also, to any extent; that is the basic principle of it all, that is occupation enough for any girl. Yes, there is occupation enough as far as filling time goes; but how if it does not satisfy? How if the girl wants something else to do – something definite, something developing?

This is deprecated by the family. "Work" is held by all to be a thing no mortal soul should do unless compelled by want. We speak sadly, tenderly, of the poor girl whose father died and left her unprovided for, wherefore "she had to work." We have not learned to see that some kind of work is necessary to all human creatures to use their powers; not mere tread-mill repetition of small, useless things, but such range of action as shall exercise all the faculties. And least of all have we learned to see that a human soul, to be healthy, must love and care for more than its own blood relations.

What the girl, as a normal human being, wants is full exercise in large social relation; things to think about, feel, and do, which do not in any way concern the home. Race-babyhood may be content at home – it was first made for babies. But as we grow up into our modern human range of power, no home can or ought to content us. We need not, therefore, cease to love it, need not neglect or ignore it. We simply need something more. That is the great lack which keeps girlhood unsatisfied; the call of the human soul for its full field of action, the world. We try to meet this lack by a surfeit of supplies for lower needs.