IS OBEDIENCE OLD-FASHIONED?

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 107, 2 November 1926, Page 13

IS OBEDIENCE OLD-FASHIONED?

Evory now and then we hear someone say, "This old-fashioned idea of making children obey is all wrong. Children must be free to make their own decisions and to govern themselves.','

This sounds very fine, but let us ask ourselves a few questions. Are our babies to.decide at what hour they will go to bed? Are they or we, tp judge upon the desirableness of their eating pickles and drinking coffee? Who is to determine whether Jack shall play with his father's razor and whether Jane shall play with the little girl next door who has whooping cough? (says "The Leader").

And when they are older, shall Jim confine his reading to tales of '' crooks'' who made a fortune and then suddenly decided to "go straight"—but without abandoning the fortune? Shall Betty feed upon the novels and "movies" that portray murder, lust, and vulgar display as if they were the only factors in real life? "

Even the most ardent apostle of "the new freedom" will modify his theory when it involves actual physical or moral danger to his child. He must admit that obedience is at times necessary to protect the child from himself. It is sheer cruelty to leave children, totally inexperienced as they are, at the mercy o^ their passing desires. Moreover, the habit of. disobedience is a very poor preparation for life. Life consists not merely of self-expression, but of adaptation to others. In order to live together each of us sacrifices a part of his freedom. Human society is based upon law and upon the expectation that the majority will obey the law and that the minority who refuse to obey it will be punished. If we could trace the history-of each of our young criminals —growing younger every years, alas —we should find, in almost every case, that they had never been taught in childhood to subordinate their own desires to tho rights of others. Obedience, then, is a protection and a preparation.

Let us not forget, however, tliat obedience to us is not an end, but a means —a means whereby our children shall learn to obey the law of health, of socioty, and of their own conscience.