Little Essavs for Mothers.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 6, 8 February 1908, Page 58

Little Essavs for Mothers.

THE BOY’S MOTHER AS HIS COMPANION.

(By

Louise D. Mitchell.)

There conies a time in the life of a woman when she confronts what to her and her children is an actual crisis in her motherhood, and upon its outcome depends the happiness of herself and her associations with her children thereafter. It is that period in which she faces the first compelling instance of the maturity of her child, which has expressed itself in the clashing of their wills in some matter of authority heretofore unquestioned. It has reached the point at last where she is shocked into a realization that it is now a question of mother and son. no longer that of mother and child. It is one of the most pathetically difficult problems of motherhood, and every woman who faces it unexpectedly—as most of them do—deserves the synfipathy of all those who can comprehend what it must mean to her. It is literally abdication. She steps down from the position of ruler into that of a familiar mingling with those whom she has ruled—yet it is, or at least should be. surrender with honour. ’ w The girl is always more of a woman

than a boy is a man. In fact, with rare exceptions, the boy retains his boyishness throughout his life, deep hidden beneath a thousand cares and absorbing interests, yet forever cropping up to make him dependent upon a woman’s help. It is part of the tragedy of womanhood that from her childhood, when she devotes her loving little heart to the care of her doll, the shadow of her motherhood, with its attendant sacrifices, should follow her throughout her life. Far beyond into his gray haired maturity the boy in the man will feel the necessity for “mother” in his hours of deep anxiety, when the disinterested sympathy of a woman is the only thing that will soothe and understand his need; and when, alas, the wife he has chosen falls short of this call of the heart, the “mother” he instinctively craves may- be mother herself, but if not it will be sister, or some other woman, since it cannot be wife. If girls were taught their responsibilities toward their brothers or other young men, end were broad enough to see what it might do for themselves and them, there would be fewer men—and brothers —go wrong through their influence or lack of it. It is the instinct of a boy to protect his mother from physical danger or mental anxieties and the wise woman will foster this. Courtesy begets courtesy, and as you “sow” this rare seed in the life of your children “so shall you reap” a rich harvest of delight. Upon the day of your

“abdication” you have no longer the power to say “do this or that” with the imperiousness that most mothers address their children. You are then face to face with men or women who have the right to demand of you the same con siderate politeness you would show the young people of your friends. 1 he earliest born moral sense that we have is that of justice, and it is the one most trampled on by friends and foes alike. If you would stop and question whether you would like such and such a thing done or said to you I think that fewer children would go about with lacerated feelings and burning resentment where they should have known nothing but the delightful harmony of a mother who was their sympathetic companion, sharer of their secrets, of their

hopes and fears, and “the best fellow of the bunch.” I’d like to write a familiar quotation thus, if Ella Wheeler Wilcox will forgive me:— Laugh, and your boy laughs with you; Scold, and he’ll leave you alone.