THE MIDDLE CLASS MOTHER,

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 77

THE MIDDLE CLASS MOTHER,

whose shortcomings, difficulties, and d*. velopments appeal more to us. Hers is not a bed of roses, whether it is made in mansion or cottage. I, for on«, think that the mother, in an up-to-date middle class family, deserves a good deal more consideration than she gets, and that if she shirks many of her duties and fails in many of her highest privileges, it is because the conditions of modern life are too strong for her. Ours is an age of keen competition, of much social ambition, and of great greed for money. These disturbing and deteriorating elements penetrate more or

less into every section of our communities, and place upon the 6houlders of most mothers so-called duties and responsibilities which quite overshadow the old-time con7 ception of a mother's place and influence with her children. The wealthier middle class woman, mindful of the example of those above her, musf'keep up her calling" lest her little world forgets her and the waters close over her head. Also, by calling on the new people who come, she can and does improve her standing and get into a much higher "set" ; and thi6 she persuades herself she must do "for the children's 6ake." It is so important that they should know "the right people." Of the constant and inexorable demands upon eveiy woman's time and attention which the difficulty and scarcity of domestic service entail it is unnecessary to remind ourselves. The broad difference, as I 6te it, between the modern mothers of all classes and their mothers and grandmothers is that the worldly interests, the social and material welfare of her children are the ones which most keenly occupy the modem mother. She must keep up her calling, know the best people, enteitain a little, order her house and expenditure 'on the lines that obtain in her set "for their sake," because if she does not the children's friends won't care to come and see them ; tHey will be looked upon as ■peculiar," and the childien themselves will resent it. "The children themselves !"' L'he phrase embodies the curious lines on which the training of the child proceeds m our time, and the type of childhood it produces. There is a complaint universal, deep, and bitter that wcmen will not grow old nowadays. The young married woman continues to pursue girlish amusements with unabated rigour. As a woman with home, husband, influence, she is a serious rival to her unmarried girl friends, whose partners, civilities, and small attentions she has ao difficulty in annexing, while they constitute a wallflower to the decoration ballroom, or a circle of bored and unrelieved femininity at races and '"musicals." The mother of the come-out girl, and the college graduate dresses in white, and wears a "picture hat" or a "river hat," without any sense of incongruity ; and having successfully imprisoned her generous outlines in the latest mode of corset probably decorates her comely waist with a sash, and cultivates a sparkling vivacity suited to these youthful modes. '"Grandma," not to be outdone, bustles round in a tailor-made and a toque "with strings," being a liandsome concession to advancing years. So each successive phase of life for the modern woman is invaded or overlapped by young people who refuse to be kept back and old people who refuse to more on. To grow old peacefully, unaffectedly, with loosening hold on the world and its pleasures, with less looking to the things of the body and more to the concerns of the epirit, why that in good society would' appear to be a.s out -of- j date as devoting oneself happily and unselfishly to a large family. The middle class mother is in many ways perhaps a freer woman. It may be that the deterioration of social ambition and the desire for wealth has not yet bitten so deeply into her atmosphere. But | she has her own difficulties to face, and perhaps after all comes somewhat better out of the oideal than the society mother or the well-to-do mother. It is the lower middle class woman who enjoys the very doubtful privilege of being the mother of the business girl — a capable young woman, with "head screwed on the right way" (for herself), who pays mother a small sum per week for her board and lodging, and with it disclaims all connection with household concerns and worries. In addition to the business gill, this modern mother probably numbers among her brood a university sUident or a Trinity College medallist, for whose future career she is pinching and saving and working — working. All her children are better educated than she ever had the chance of being. They bring it home to her with uplifted eyebrow and indulgent smile. She is made to feel hopelessly ignorant — 'out of it" continually. Their education is of the flimsiest surely, or they would not be co conceited about it ; but, superficial as it ia, to her it ie wonderful. Before its unkind allusions she feels crippled, mystified — deprived of something, some subtle power, or grace, or authority which should be hers and is not. It began long ago. this chilling sense of inferiority. It dulled her feeling of natural authority. and , caused her to falter and hesitate with pitiful uncertainty when questions even of moral and spiritual disagreement arose, and the strong young wills, with weapons of educational equipment supeiior to her own, successfully made hpr feel "merely mother." Thus it will be seen that in the lar^re percentage of modern homes, where children are brought up with the un.spoken conviction, that education is everything ; the mother, unavoidably at a disadvantage, requires an exceptionally strong and loveable character to enable her to counterbalance the drawbacks of being "only mother" — poorly educated and illequipped in intellectual attainments when compared with her children and their friends. Which is not half I should like to say. yet must suffice, for there is only ore ay back to the influence and beauty of home and the ideal greatness of women as the uncrowned queens, whose place iv the hearts of husband and children is higher than the thrones of the earth's crowned Empresses — and that is the way of the spirit and not the way of the world- That the modern mother has much to account for in her devotion to worldly success and worldly standards is unanswerable. That she has difficulties and trials and problems to meet in refusing by ever so little to lje Swept into the current that KUXOSads her should plead her excuse for flinch of the blame so generously placed upon her comely back.

—At least the minister who rehearses his termonc cannot be accused of failing to practise what he preache§»