To Mothers

Categories: Uncategorized
Sources: The Freedom Of Life

MOST mothers know that it is better for the baby to put him into his

crib and let him go quietly to sleep by himself, than to rock him to

sleep or put him to sleep in his mother's arms.



Most mothers know also the difficulty of getting the baby into the

right habit of going to sleep; and the prolonged crying that has to

be endured by both mother and baby before the habit is thoroughly

established.
br />

Many a mother gets worn out in listening to her crying child, and

goes to bed tired and jaded, although she has done nothing but sit

still and listen. Many more, after listening and fretting for a

while, go and take up the baby, and thus they weaken him as well as

their own characters.



A baby who finds out, when he is two months old, that his mother

will take him up if he cries, is also apt to discover, if be cries

or teases enough, that his mother will let him have his own way for

the rest of his life.



The result is that the child rules the mother, rather than the

mother the child; and this means sad trouble and disorder for both.



Strong, quiet beginnings are a most valuable help to all good things

in life, and if a young mother could begin by learning how to sit

quietly and restfully and let her baby cry until he quieted down and

went to sleep, she would be laying the foundation for a very happy

life with her children.



The first necessity, after having seen that nothing is hurting him

and that he really needs nothing, is to be willing that he should

cry. A mother can make herself willing by saying over and over to

herself, "It is right that he should cry; I want him to cry until he

has learned to go to sleep quietly by himself He will be a stronger

and a more healthy man for getting into all good habits as a child."



Often the mother's spirit is willing, or wants to be willing, but

her nerves rebel if, while she is teaching herself to listen

quietly, she will take long, quiet breaths very steadily for some

time, and will occupy herself with interesting work, she will find

it a great help toward dropping nervous resistance.



Children are much more sensitive than most people know, and readily

respond to the mother's state of mind; and even though the mother is

in the next room, if she is truly dropping her nervous resistance

and tension, the baby will often stop his crying all the sooner, and

besides, his mother will feel the good effects of her quiet yielding

in her care of the baby all day long. She will be rested instead of

tired when the baby has gone to sleep. She will have a more

refreshing sleep herself, and she will be able to care for the baby

more restfully when they are both awake.



It is a universal rule that the more excited or naughty the children

are, the more quiet and clear the mother should be. A mother who

realizes this for the first time, and works with herself until she

is free from all excited and strained resistance, discovers that it

is through her care for her children that she herself has learned

how to live. Blessed are the children who have such a mother, and

blessed is the mother of those children!



It is resistance--resistance to the naughtiness or disobedience in

the child that not only hurts and tires the mother, but interferes

with the best growth of the child.



"What!" a mother may say, "should I want my child to be naughty?

What a dreadful thing!"



No, we should not want our children to be naughty, but we should be

willing that they should be. We should drop resistance to their

naughtiness, for that will give us clear, quiet minds to help them

out of their troubles.



All vehemence is weak; quiet, clear decision is strong; and the

child not only feels the strength of the quiet, decisive action, but

he feels the help from his mother's quiet atmosphere which comes

with it. If all parents realized fully that the work they do for

their children should be done in themselves first, there would soon

be a new and wonderful influence perceptible all about us.



The greatest difficulty often comes from the fact that children have

inherited the evil tendencies of their parents, which the parents

themselves have not acknowledged and overcome. In these cases, most

of all, the work to be done for the child must first be done in the

parents.



A very poor woman, who was living in one room with her husband and

three children, once expressed her delight at having discovered how

to manage her children better: "I see!" she said, "the more I

hollers, the more the children hollers; now I am not going to holler

any more."



There is "hollering" of the voice, and there is "hollering" of the

spirit, and children echo and suffer from both.



The same thing is true from the time they are born until they are

grown up, when it should be right for them to be their own fathers

and mothers, so far as their characters are concerned, that they can

receive the greatest possible help from their parents through quiet

non-resistance to their naughtiness, combined with firm decision in

demanding obedience to law,--a decision which will derive its weight

and influence from the fact that the parents themselves obey the

laws to which they require obedience.



Thus will the soul of the mother be mother to the soul of her child,

and the development of mother and child be happily interdependent.



It is, of course, not resisting to be grieved at the child's

naughtiness,--for that grief must come as surely as penitence for

our own wrongdoing.



The true dropping of resistance brings with it a sense that the

child is only given to us in trust, and an open, loving willingness

leaves us free to learn the highest way in which the trust may be

fulfilled.