The girl in the home is a member of the partnership plan of the family. She should have the same financial, social and moral rights of her brother. Her moral training should be no better than his. If she is properly trained in the home, her services are as valuable as her brother’s and she should have the same financial rights.
The girl and her father.—The father, if worthy of being such, should have the confidence, respect and love of his daughter. She should feel free to approach him with her wishes and her problems. His advice and council will be of great value to her in her social relation with young men. Many girls fail to show themselves interested in their father. Girls should be attentive, kind and loving in their relations to their father.
The girl and her mother.—A mother should not forget the experience of her girlhood. Though busy and burdened with many cares, she should take time to talk, often and intimately, with her daughter, of her own girlhood, her own temptations, her own experiences in the various vicissitudes of life. By wisely cultivating the relation of a sympathetic companionship, the mother can often bridge her daughter over that period of adolescence, when many girls come to regard their mothers as “old fogies.” This is a stage of growth in a girl’s life. It usually occurs when they are in the high school. They openly and unkindly criticise their mother’s dress, speech, advice, council and religion. This is a period of development that girls pass through. The right relation between the girl and her mother would save the mother from many tears and heartaches and the girl from many regretful memories of misconception and blindness.
Fortunate, is the girl, who has never had an attack of “high school snobbery,” who has never spoken lightly of the imaginary deficiencies of mother; but, who has always found it a joy to divide gifts with mother, to hand her the prettiest rose and to read her a choice story.
The girl and her brother.—Girls do not always appreciate the influence they are exerting over their brothers. A boy’s estimate of woman is often received from his sister’s influence. A sister has it largely in her power to make her brother gentle, true and pure. She can make home attractive and pleasant for him and thus save her brother from seeking pleasures in questionable places and ways. Brothers and
Chums in the Home
sisters should grow up together, be educated together, play together and, as far as possible, help each other. Their joys and sorrows, aims and purposes should be mutual. Her lack of physical strength, her natural tastes and aspirations, her duties and mission in life, being in many respects different from her brother, require a line of preparation unlike her brother receives.
Her first and most valuable training.—Marriage is not the only goal toward which a young woman may turn, but it is the most natural, important and worthy. Most all girls look forward to marriage as a possible and desirable goal. Perhaps no woman would refuse marriage, if the right man should propose. It is for this reason that every girl should prepare herself thoroughly to be a housekeeper, a wife and a mother. This should be her first and most thorough training. She should not rest satisfied until she has learned every phase of how to keep house, to care for the wants of small children and to manage hired help. This training should begin in childhood. A girl should be able to dress herself and to keep her own room by the time she is ten years old. Whatever may be her career in life, she will always be the better off because she is a good housekeeper. She may not have to be a housekeeper, for she may have servants, still she is all the better off, as she will understand how to manage the servants.
The independent girl.—In addition to having prepared herself for a housekeeper, a wife and a mother, she should now prepare herself for some vocation in life. The right man may not present himself, she may be called upon to support an aged mother or father, or an invalid husband, and she will need to know how to earn a living. A girl, unprepared to support herself, waiting year after year for some man to come and marry her, is an object of profound pity. If the right man comes along and marries her, all is well. But she often marries the wrong fellow, or waits for many weary years and yet, he never comes. A generation ago few opportunities of earning a support were open to a girl. Conditions have changed, woman’s ideals have grown and the world offers her other vocations than housekeeping, wifehood and motherhood, and unless these come in very attractive form she can choose the vocation of art, music, teaching, stenography, book-keeping or some other calling. By the time she is eighteen, a girl should be able to keep a house or earn a living in some business way. This will give her an assurance of independence. Regardless of the wealth of her parents, she should have these two qualifications. If her parents are poor and she is ambitious, she can now work her way through college, if she desires.
If the morals of a girl have been properly safeguarded by her mother’s training and teaching, the independent girl is little more likely to fall than the girl who remains at home and waits for a husband.
The independent girl who goes out into the world with her brother, shoulders the same burdens, wrestles with the same problems, fights the same battles and overcomes the same difficulties, will meet a better class of men than those who would likely seek her out in her home. She is more likely to be happily married, than if she remained at home. She is now better fitted to be a housekeeper, wife and mother, than if she had remained at home. She has learned how to produce a dollar, she now knows the value of it and how, wisely, to spend it.
Mother’s Responsibility.
Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon
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