THE INFALLIBLE CHILD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 370, 13 September 1930, Page 16 (Supplement)

THE INFALLIBLE CHILD

MODERN PARENTS. HUMILITY COMPLEX. ■ Infallibility was an article of faith I which Victorian parents strove to imI pose on their children if we are to believe the edifying children’s literature of the period and such unedifying documents as “The Way of All Flesh,” states a London writer. Parents were never cross, only tired, never angry, only grieved never selfish, only ‘‘doing it for your good, dear”; and the famous dictum with which Mr Bernard Shaw is credited, “»that you should never strike a child, except in anger,” is a protest against the infliction of punishment in that spirit of smug righteousness, that attitude of “it hurts me more than it hurts you, ” which-no child ever born was prepared to believe. Well, we have travelled a long w.tj since those days; the infallible parent, has disappeared, only to give place. I t.m so”'otiru’s inclined to think, to the infallible child. The modern generation of parents is so convinced of the error of its pre dccessor’s ways that it has gone to the other extreme. Having given up tne idea that children existed for their parents’ glorification, and by their good looks, good behaviour, -nd incredible facility at winning school prizes, tc mini'ter to the parents’ secret vaniV't we n«’w see them in an attitude uf studied humility toward their offspring. If Bobby won't eat cabbage for dinner but screams for pudding; it is mother who has been unwise in her presentation of the wholesome food; she, pour ignorant wretch, has set up a ‘complex” in the little fellow. And if Pamela throws her toys about the nursery or is saucy to her elders, she is only trying to assert her individuality, which by some means they nave repressed. Theirs the blame for the broken doll or the pert answer, and they must retire apart and search into the wicked secrets of their own hearts. Something there is of truth in all this; children are easily made naughty by unwise governance, and nothing is more distressing than to see a child punished for a fault the commission of which could have been avoided by a little tact. But children are no more perfect than their parents, and, though the Christian doctrine of original sin is sadly out of fashion, particularly with the school of child-psychologists, there are sufficient evidences of the old Adam in the most perfectly brought-up child to give colour to the tenets of Dean Inge. And in avoiding one set of errors in their treatment of their children, modern parents arc apt to fall into another. Because they do not want to repress their children, nor to look upon them as puppets whose destinies they have full right to control, nor as a means to their own self-glorification, they are inclined to bring up the children in the belief that the whole world revolves round them and all things exist to minister Io them.

No, we have got once again to readjust the balance between parents and children; to recognise that, if two generations are to live together under one roof each has its rights and privileges; and parents must have the courage to recognise that there is neither beauty nor sense in the total sacrifice of all their wishes and privileges. Only by a fair division of obligations, only by something of a partnership (as must be the case between husband and wife also) will parents and children arrive at the free and beautiful friendship which must surely be the ideal of every father or mother holding in their arms their little new-born child.