MODERN PARENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

MODERN PARENTS.

DONT BE MARTYRS.

CHILDREN OLDER THESE DAYS.

(By LADY STRATHSPEY.)

How many parents Immolate themselves on the altar of their children's future? In more homes than we realise fond fathers and mothers are stinting and scraping and starving and denying themselves every comfort so that Jimmy or Marjorie or both shall have better chances than they had. It is a wild and tragic mistake. Martyrdom of an individual for a cause, martyrdom that will tend to make a number of people the happier for one sacrifice, may bo justifiable and noble. Anything that makes for the greater happiness of the greater number in this world must be to the good. But self-sacrifice of parents to a child who does not need their martyrdom and does not even know about it, is to me something more than foolish. It is almost wicked. For it does far more harm than good. In the case of an only child it definitely harms three people. Where the parents of a whole family are sacrificing them- ~^— <..n. selves, whether it is for one child or more, all suffer in their own various ways. Mothers are usually the worst culprits, and suffer most in consequence.

Why cannot parents hark back occasionally to their own childhood and remember and lament over their own utter thoughtlessness at that stage. Childhood and youth are only capable of gratitude for specific, tangible things. Unless someone outside the home grounds them in the knowledge that others arc suffering for their future, they never, never understand. As I say, you can easily prove it by looking back on your own childhood. You may have had the greatest affection for your parents. You may have gone out of your way to please them. But I guarantee that you hardly gave a thought to their outlook on you. Save perhaps to grumble at them for still thinking you a child when you thought you were grown up.

A parent will retort: "That's nothing to do with it. I stint myself for my child because I prefer to do so. I want my offspring to have the best chances in life. I don't want gratitude for it." Very well. If you want your child to have the best chances you want it to have some character in order to make the most of its opportunities. And that is precisely what you are denying it. Parents who forget themselves and remember only their children may be the dearest people. But they do not rear the dearest children. How could they? The effacement of themselves gives the child an enlarged view of itself. It becomes the only personage to consider, and parents don't exist beside it.

That is why it develops into selfish and ungrateful youth. Why, twenty or thirty years ago we were continually hearing of mothers and fathers who had given their lives for sons and daughters, who ended by deserting or landing in serious scrapes. If the Victorian and Edwardian boy and girl didn't realise that parents made sacrifices, we can be quite sure that the youth of to-day will not. Higher Education.

Again, it is so needless in these times. Youth to-day is "older." The youth of yesterday may have needed encouragement and petting and all kinds of considerations. To-day, boys and girls all but resent what their parents at the same age would have taken for granted. And I wonder if the higher education which some parents confer on their children at the cost of their own health and happiness is really of any value. If the 'boy or girl is clever enough to take advantage, yes. But how few are. Look at the hundreds educated above their wants and station with no possibility of utilising their knowledge. The scarcity of jobs settles that question. But when the boy or girl shows real ability there is no sacrifice needed. Countless facilities are given in scholarships and money and free classes and the interest of people in high places. What the youth of to-day needs is friendship and understanding,

~. —?l» J^-—?fc t^ with a discreetly firm hand in the background. People who efface themselves before to-day's boys and girls will get all they ask for—that is, ingratitude, and—what must be far worse —complete indifference. Sacrifice in the twentieth century is so often mistaken for weakness.