FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3137, 2 October 1922, Page 7

FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE.

(By Margaret Gordon.) How many women are there, I wonder, who put up with brutal and neglectful husbands because they believe that duty towards their children demands the sacrifice of all that makes life worth, living? How many men bear with useless and ill-tempered wives for the same reason ?

Most of us could cite one o<r two of these martyrs. But if we could, like Asmodeus, peep through drawn curtains and locked doors, we should find that their name is legion. One can't help admiring the devoted father or mother who puts the children's welfare before! their own happiness. Sacrifice is the test and the glory of love, more especially of parental love. But is this particular kind of sacrifice justified Looking at it calmly, in the light or experience, I don't believe it is.

The boys or girls whose parents are separated or divorced 1 are. of course, in a difficult and sometimes in a painful position. As/ a rule, they are obliged to spend their lives, or at least their holidays, between two households wherein each parent vies with the other in efforts to retain the affection of theii children. Between the two the 1 child is in danger of being spoilt, and, in any ease, it loses too early the illusion that marriage is invariably a beautiful and «■

sacred thing. Look, however,' for a moment at the other picture—the picture of the house where the parents continue to inhabit the same housei for the sake of the children. Even when the father 1 and mother have enough self-control not to rail at each other before them, children are much too sensitive not to bo aware of the atmosphere that surrounds them.

They are acutely conscious of the fact that it is charged with friction even if they don't understand why their parents don't "hit it off." They know perfectly well that frigid politeness is only a cloak for antipathy. And; in many such homes the prevailing antipathy is apt to break on occasions into bitter words and violent scenes to which the children in the nursery listen, curious and terrified. Surely this sort of home inflicts far greater injury upon the children than any separation! Nothing, I am convinced, is so distressing to the growing girl or boy as to live in an environment poisoned by strife, where anger and resentment have taken the place of love and harmony between those who are nearest and dearest to them. Modern science has shown us that the impressions received in our earliest years are the deepest of all. Often they create indelible memories which affect the whole of our after-life and health. The first duty therefore of parents is to see that those infantile impressions are helpful and not hurtful.

Too many parents seem still to believe that the ostrich trick can safely be practised on children, though" the most superficial study of child-psy-chology teaches one how impossible it is ta deceive the young, h'ew grown-up people are as sensitive to the atmosphere of discord as a child is. They know instinctively the difference between pretence and reality. For the children therefore I am inclined to think that separated parents are often better than those who "stick together" in a camouflaged misery.