Chapter XV: Preparation for Parenthood

"If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of
arithmetic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and
look for disastrous consequences. Or if, before studying anatomy,
a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his
audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the
difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a
thought to the principles--physical, moral, or
intellectual--which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise
at the actors nor pity for their victims."--_Herbert Spencer._

Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or as affecting the characters and lives of their children, a knowledge of the right methods of juvenile culture--physical, intellectual, and moral--is a knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman, but it is entirely neglected.

"If by some strange chance," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some college examination papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no sign that the learners were ever likely to be parents. "This must have been the _curriculum_ for their celibates," we may fancy him concluding: "I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things, but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children." They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school-course of one of their monastic orders."

Parents go into their office with zeal and good intentions, but without any better knowledge than that which is supplied by the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers. "Against stupidity the gods themselves are powerless!" We all understand that some kind of preparation is necessary for the merchant, the soldier, the surgeon, or even for making coats and boots; but for the great responsibility of parenthood all preparation is ignored, and people begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles that ought to guide them.

How fatal are the results! Who shall say how many early deaths of children and enfeebled constitutions, implying moral and intellectual weakness, are caused by ignorance on the part of parents of the commonest laws of life? Every one can think of illustrations. Our clothing is, in reference to the temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food, for by diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel needful for maintaining heat. Those parents cannot be aware of this who give their children scanty clothing in order to harden them, or who only allow a dawdling walk beside a grown-up person instead of the boisterous play which all young animals require and which would produce warmth.

Fathers who pride themselves on taking prizes at cattle-shows for their sheep and pigs are not at all ashamed never to ascertain the best kind of food for feeding children. They do not care if their children are fed with monotonous food, though change of diet is required for the preservation of health.

And then as to the intellects of children. Ignorance puts books into their hands full of abstract matter in those early years when the only lessons they are capable of learning are those taught by concrete objects. Not knowing that a child's restless observation and sense of wonder are for a few years its best instructors, parents endeavour to occupy its attention with dull abstractions. It is no wonder that few grown-up people know anything about the beauties and wonders of nature. During those years when the child should have been spelling out nature's primer and pleasurably exercising his powers of observation, grammar, languages, and other abstract studies have occupied most of his attention. Having been "presented with a universal blank of nature's works" he learns to see everything through books, that is, through other men's eyes, and the greater part of his knowledge in after life consists of mere words.

We are aware that it will provoke laughter to hint that for the proper bringing up of children a knowledge of the elementary principles of physiology, psychology, and ethics are indispensable. May we not, however, hold up this ideal of Mr. Herbert Spencer to ourselves and to others? "Here are," he says, "the indisputable facts: that the development of children in mind and body follows certain laws; that unless these laws are in some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they are in a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and mental defects, and that only when they are completely conformed to can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one day be parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what these laws are." "I was not brought up, but dragged up," said the poor girl in the tale; and she touched unconsciously the root of nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the world.

Great as is the importance of some information, if children are to be properly reared, still knowledge is by no means all that preparation for parenthood should include. While Doctor Johnson was musing over the fire one evening in Thrale's drawing-room, a young gentleman suddenly, and, as Johnson seems to have fancied, somewhat disrespectfully, called to him: "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" _Johnson_ (angrily): "Sir, I would advise no man to marry who is not likely to propagate understanding."

Would the doctor have extended this restriction to all men and women who are not likely to propagate good bodies and souls? We know that there are people whose misfortunes and vices will spoil and ruin, not merely the lives of those they marry, but the lives of their children too. The miserable inheritance of their imperfections will be transmitted to coming generations. If it were only possible to keep all these people single, those who will be living thirty years hence would be living in a very different world from this.

The only restriction public opinion now puts to any marriage is that it should not be forbidden by the "Table of Kindred and Affinity" contained in the Prayer Book. When will all improvident marriages be equally illegal? When will scrofula, madness, drunkenness, or even bad temper and excessive selfishness be considered as just causes and impediments why parties should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Only the best men and women of this generation--could these be discovered--should become the parents of the next.

It has been flippantly asked why we should consult the interests of the next generation since the next generation has done nothing for us. The answer is plain. We have no right to bequeath to it an heritage of woe. Every man and woman can do much to make themselves worthy of the honour and responsibility of being a parent. Let them preserve their health, cultivate their social affections, and, above all, abstain from those sins which science and bitter experience assure us are visited on children. It is only when they do this that a new edition of themselves is called for.

"Who is the happy husband? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife."

And who are the happy parents? Those who, scanning their unwedded lives, thank Heaven they were faithful to future children.

It is to be hoped that few men now are as careless or as ignorant of consequences to children as was Mr. Tulliver in George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss," when he picked his wife from her sisters "o' purpose, 'cause she was a bit weak, like." We have come to see that, in order to be good mothers, women must be very unlike Mrs. Pullet in the same story, who was bent on proving her gentility and wealth by the delicacy of her health, and the quantity of doctor's stuff she could afford to imbibe.

But parents have not altogether given up sacrificing their own health and the health of their children to the Moloch of fashion. They have not quite ceased to burn incense to vanity. We have still to complain, as did Frances Kemble, that the race is ruined for the sake of fashion. "I cannot believe that women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as they are, in child-bearing; but rather that both are the consequences of our many and various abuses of our constitutions and infractions of God's natural laws. Tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, and similar concessions to the vagaries of feminine fashion, are accountable for many of the ills that afflict both mother and child."

When King David was forbidden to build a temple for God's service because he had shed blood abundantly, with noble self-forgetfulness he laid up before his death materials with which Solomon his son might have the honour of building it. If parents would imitate his example and lay up the materials of good character and health, what glorious temples they might erect to God in the bodies, minds, and souls of their children!