The Children of the Family : Part 1

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 9 of 23)

The human being arrives:
"Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me;
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen;
For room to me the stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me;
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
And forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me;
Now, on this spot I stand with my robust soul."

- Walt Whitman.

"The child grows up in a setting of social functions of a type higher always than that of his private accomplishment. He must grow by gradual absorption of copies, patterns and examples." - Baldwin.

"He is happy who comes with healthy body into the world; much more he who goes with healthy spirit out of it. Nature has implanted within us the seeds of learning, of virtue, and of piety; to bring these to maturity is the object of education. All men require education, and God has made children unfit for other employments in order that they may have leisure to learn." -Comenius.

"The most critical interval of human nature is that between the hour of birth and twelve years of age; this is the time when vice and error may take root without our being possessed of any instrument to destroy them; the first art of education, then, consists neither in teaching virtue nor truth but in guarding the heart from evil and the mind from error." - Rousseau.

"A ladder leading to heaven is let down to every child, but he165 must be taught to climb it. Education should decide for every child not only what is to be made of its life, but should seek an answer to the question, what was it intended that child should become?" - Pestalozzi.

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." - Old Proverb.

"Come, let us live with our children!" - Froebel.

Conditions to be Secured for Every Child. - There are several conditions which must be secured for every child to insure that it may be born and reared according to high standards.

These may be listed as follows:

I. Two parents, to secure in advance a favorable social position.

II. A competent mother, to insure his first two or three years of life in health, happiness, and growing power.

III. A competent father, to stand back of the mother and help make a home adequate at least to the minimum of normal life's demands.

IV. Community surroundings that will make possible the successful achievement of parental duty.

V. Census provisions for vital and social statistics that will make it sure that every child is counted in the population of his nation, state, and community, and that he is accounted for in all social relationships.

VI. State protection against industrial exploitation, vicious influences, harmful use of leisure time, and generally unwholesome conditions.

VII. Health standards in the community, fixed by experts and maintained in essentials by public provisions.

VIII. Education standards, fixed by experts and maintained, at least in normal minimum, by community provision.

IX. Such vital relation between the family, the school, the political system, and all cultural opportunities as shall insure to each child his just share of the social inheritance to which all are heir.

The Need for Two Parents. - The first point noted is the need of two parents for every child. The illegitimate child is handicapped. It is a sound social movement that aims to make every "slacker" father accept his share of responsibility in the case of the unmarried mother and either marry the woman or give financial aid for the child. It does not thereby secure two actual parents for the child. The orphan child, the half-orphan child is handicapped; more so if bereft of mother than of father, but if the father dies or deserts after marriage, all experience shows that even if the mother lives and is capable and faithful, the child who lacks a father has many difficulties to overcome. The child of parents who have come to dislike each other is seriously handicapped. A forced tie between those who no longer love each other creates an atmosphere often fatal to comfort and happiness and one to which children, sensitive as they are to the feeling of their elders, react most unfavorably. The child of divorced parents is handicapped; perhaps not so often or so seriously as when held for years in an atmosphere of mutual hatred, suspicion, fault-finding, and distrust - handicapped, however, by many social embarrassments, by shock to affection given, perhaps, to both parents equally, and by the often great difficulty of finding a suitable home for the child of the divorced couple. The child that is not wanted and comes into a world hostile to his birth is handicapped in proportion as the influence reaches him at the moment of conception or lessens the power of the parents to give him what he needs before or after he arrives.

There must, then, be two parents, in love, as in law, to start a child right - two parents who live until he has reached age of independent direction and support, two parents who pull together for themselves and for him, two parents who are equally recognized in law as acting for him in guardianship throughout his minority.

The recognition of some of these needs of every child has been more general and intelligent than that of others. For example, the equal guardianship of the father and mother, their mutual responsibility for financial support when financially competent, their equal control over the family life and their common pledge to the community of parental care - this has not been recognized until recently, is not now in many of the States of the Union and perhaps not perfectly in any one.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.