The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Parents and Children:
(A Sequel to "Home Education").

II.--PARENTS AS RULERS.

Let us continue our consideration of the family, as, the nation in miniature, with the responsibilities, the rights, and the requirements of the nation. The parents represent the "Government," but here the government is ever an absolute Monarchy, conditioned very loosely by the law of the land, but very closely by that law more or less of which every parent bears engraved on his conscience. Some attain the levels of high thinking, and come down from the Mount with beaming countenance and the tables of the law intact; others fail to reach the difficult heights, and are content with such fragments of the broken tables as they pick up below. But be his knowledge of the law little or much, no parent escapes the call to rule.

Now, the first thing we ask for in a ruler is, "Is he able to rule? Does he know how to maintain his authority?" A ruler who fails to govern is like an unjust judge, an impious priest, an ignorant teacher, that is, he fails in the essential attribute of his office. This is even more true in the family than in the State; the king may rule by deputy; but here we see the exigeant nature of the parent's functions; he can have no deputy. Helpers he may have, but the moment he makes over his functions and authority to another, the rights of parenthood belong to that other, and not to him. Who does not know of the heart-burnings that arise when Anglo-Indian parents come home, to find their children's affections given to others, their duty owing to others; and they, the parents, sources of pleasure like the godmother of the fairy tale, but having no authority over their children. And all this, nobody's fault, for the guardians at home have done their best to keep the children loyal to the parents abroad.

Here is indicated a rock upon which the heads of families sometimes make shipwreck. They regard parental authority as inherent in them, a property which may lie dormant, but is not to be separated from the state of parenthood. The may allow their children from infancy upwards to do what is right in their own eyes; and then, Lear turns and makes his plaint to the winds, and cries:--

       "Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
       To have a thankless child!"

But Lear has been all the time divesting himself of the honour and authority that belong to him, and giving his rights to the children. Here he tells us why; the biting anguish is, the "thankless" child. He has been laying himself out for the thanks of his children. That they should think him a fond father has been more to him than the duty he owes them; and in proportion as he omits his duty are they oblivious of theirs. Possibly the unregulated love of approbation in devoted parents has more share in the undoing of families than any other single cause. Miss L. T. Meade has hit off the feeling:--

"'But you are not afraid of me, Bessie?'
'No indeed; who could be afraid of a dear, sweet, soft, little mother like you?'"

And such praise is sweet in the cars of many a fond mother hungering for the love and liking of her children, and not perceiving that words like these in the mouth of a child are as treasonable as words of defiance.

Authority is laid down at other shrines popularity. Prospero describes himself as than that of

       . . . . "all dedicate
       To study, and the bettering of my mind."

And, meantime, the exercise of authority devolves upon Antonio; is it any wonder that the habit of authority fits the usurper like a glove, and that Prospero finds himself oustetd, from the office he failed to fill? Even so, the busy parent, occupied with many cares, awakes to find the authority he has failed to wield has dropped out of his hands; perhaps has been picked up by others less fit, and "Tessie" is given over to the "Brands," while father and mother hunt for rare prints.

In other cases, the love of an easy life tempts parents to let things take their course; the children are good children, and won't go far wrong, we are told; and very likely it is true; but however good the children be, the parents owe it to society to make them better than they are, and to bless the world with people not merely good-natured and well disposes, but good of set purpose and endeavour.

The love of ease, the love of favour, the claims of other work, are only some of the causes which lead to a result disastrous to society--the abdication of parents. When we come to consider the nature and uses of the parents' authority we shall see that such abdication is as immoral as it is mischievous. Meantime, it is worth while to notice that the causes which lead parents to resign the position of domestic rulers are resolvable into one--the office is too troublesome, too laborious. The temptation which assails parents is the same which has led many a crowned head to seek ease in the cloister:

       "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"

if it be the natural crown of parenthood.

The Apostolic counsel of "diligence" in ruling throws light upon the nature and aim of authority: it is no longer a matter of personal honour and dignity; authority is for use and service, and the honour that goes with it is only for the better service of those under authority. The arbitrary parent, the exacting parent, who claims this and that of deference and duty because he is a parent, all for his own honour and glory, is more hopelessly in the wrong than the parent who practically abdicates; the majesty of parenthood is hedged round with observances only because it is good for the children to " faith-fully serve, honour, and humbly obey their natural rulers. Only at home can children be trained in the chivalrous temper of "proud submission and dignified obedience"; and if the parents do not inspire and foster deference, reverence, and loyalty, how shall these crowning graces of character thrive in a hard and emulous world?

It is perhaps a little difficult to maintain an attitude of authority in these democratic days, when even educationists counsel that children be treated on equal terms from the very beginning: but the children themselves come to our aid; the sweet humility and dependence natural to them fosters the gentle dignity, the soupcon of reserve, which is becoming in parents. It is not open to either to lay aside or to sink under the burden of the honour laid upon them; and, no doubt we have all seen the fullest, freest flow of confidence, sympathy, and love between parent and child where the mother sits as a queen among her children and the father is honoured as a crowned head. The fact that there are two parents, each to lend honour to the other, yet free from restraint in each other's presence, makes it the easier to maintain the impalpable "state" of parenthood. And the presence of this slight, sweet, undefined feeling of dignity in the household is the very first condition for the bringing up of loyal, honourable men and women, capable of reverence, and apt to win respect.

The foundation of parental authority lies in the fact that parents hold office as deputies, and that in a twofold sense. In the first place, they are the immediate and personally-appointed deputies of the Almighty King, the sole Ruler of men; they have not only to fulfil His counsels regarding the children, but to represent His Person; his parents are as God to the little child; and, yet more constraining thought, God is to him what his parents are; he has no power to conceive a greater and lovelier personality than that of the royal heads of his own home ; he makes his first approach to the Infinite through them; they are his measure for the highest; if the measure is easily within his small compass, how shall he grow up with the reverent temper which is the condition of spiritual growth?

More; parents hold their children in trust for society. "My own child" can only be true in a limited sense; the children are held as a public trust to be trained as is best for the welfare of the community; and in this sense, also, the parents are persons in authority, with the dignity of their office to support, and are even liable to deposition. The one state whose name has passed into a proverb standing for a which we have no other word to describe, is a state which, group of virtues practically deprived dheprived parents of the functions which they failed to flies to the furtherance of public virtue. No doubt the State reserves to itself, virtually, the power to bring up its own children in its own way, with the least possible co-operation of parents. Even today, a neighbouring nation has elected to charge itself with the training of its infants: so soon as they can crawl, or sooner, before ever they run or speak, they are to be brought to the "Maternal School," and carefully nurtured, as with mother's milk, in the virtues proper for a citizen. The scheme is as yet but in the experimental stage, but will doubtless be carried through, because the nation in question has long ago discovered--and acted consistently upon the discovery--that what you would have the man become, that you must train the child to be.

Perhaps such public deposition of parents is the last calamity that can befall a nation. These poor little ones are to grow up in a world where the name of God is not to be named; to grow up too, without the training in filial duty and brotherly love and neighbourly kindness which falls to the children of all but the few unnatural parents. They may be returned to their parents at certain hours or after certain years; but once alienation has been set up, once the strongest and sweetest tie has been loosened and the parents have been publicly delivered from--their duty, the desecration of the home is complete: and we shall have the spectacle of a people growing up orphaned, almost from their birth. A new thing, this, in the world's history, for even Lycurgus left the children to their parents for the first half-dozen years of life. Certain newspapers commend the example for our imitation, but God forbid that we should ever lose faith in the blessedness of family life. Parents who hold their children as, at the same time, a public trust and a divine trust, and who recognise the authority they hold as deputed authority, not to be trifled with, laid aside, or abused--such parents preserve for the nation the immunities of home, and safeguard the privileges of their order.

Having seen that it does not rest with the parents to use, or to forego the use of, the authority they hold, let us examine the limitations and the scope of this authority. In the first place, it is to be maintained and exercised solely for the advantage of the children, whether in mind, body, or estate. And here is room for the nice discrimination, the delicate intuitions, with which parents are blessed. The mother, who makes her growing-up daughter take the out-of-door exercise she needs, is acting within her powers. The father of quiet habits, who discourages society for his young people, is considering his own tastes and not their needs, and is making unlawful use of his authority.

Again, the authority of parents, though the deference it begets remain to grace the relations of parents and child, is itself a provisional function, and is only successful as it encourages the autonomy, if we may call it so, of the child. A single decision made by the parents which the child is, or should be, capable of making for itself, is an encroachment on the rights of the child, and a transgression on the part of the parents.

Once more, the authority of parents rests on a secure foundation only as they keep well before the children of it is deputed authority; the child who knows that he is being brought up for the service of the nation, that his parents are acting under a divine commission, will not turn out a rebellious son.

Further, though the emancipation of the children is gradual, they acquiring day by day more of the art and science of self-government, yet there comes a day when the parents' right to rule is over; there is nothing left for the parents but to abdicate gracefully, and leave their grown-up sons and daughters absolutely free agents, even though these still live at home; and though, in the eyes of their parents, they are not quite fit to be trusted with the ordering of themselves: if they fail in such self-ordering, whether as regards time, occupations, money, friends, most likely their parents are to blame for not having introduced them by degrees to the full liberty which is their right as men and women. Anyway, it is too late now to keep them in training; fit or unfit, they, must hold the rudder for themselves.

As for the employment of authority, the highest art lies in ruling without seeming to do so. The law is a terror to evil-doers, but for the praise of them that do well; and in the family, as in the State, the best government is that in which peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, are maintained without the intervention of the law. Happy is the household that has no rules, and where "Mother does not like his," and "Father wishes that" are all-constraining.

(To be continued.)

Typed by happi, March 2016