OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By Angelo Patri CHILDREN are not pure joy to their parents nor to themselves. Broken sleep means a severe strain on the health, and accordingly on the tempers of fathers and mothers....
...In any case his mother suffers great anxiety...
...Maybe he has to cross dangerous streets and she must go to and from school with him three times, four times, making six to eight trips daily...
...There are soft spoken telephone calls and letters hastily slipped into pockets...
...His own mother hardly knows him, and he becomes a stranger...
...Now she looks forward to the day when he goes to school and plays with other children...
...When he was in his crib at least she knew where he was...
...Well, that is the way children grow and there is nothing to be done about it save to like it, enjoy it as much as possible, and help the child to get the most good out of his growing and learning time...
...Getting up at five or even half past five, is a sore trial to mothers who have worked all day and slept lightly for the first part of the night...
...He keeps late hours, or he doesn't go out often enough, he has a girl, or she has a beau, and refuses any information about the matter...
...He changes in disposition, attitudes, and habits...
...Always she looks forward to the 'time when this baby will be able to get along for a few hours each day without her personal attention...
...Then the long day of routine, bottles, changes, baths, training, diet lists, visits to the doctor's office, all to be attended to between household chores, makes a further drain on the mother's strength and her good temper...
...Few babies sleep through the night...
...He must learn to care for himself or be guarded by ah older child...
...There are no really fixed rules save the law of love, which most parents* understand very well indeed...
...When they do, they waken at an unearthly hour and demand attention in no uncertain terms...
...When the time arrives according to the schedule, he is more a trial than ever...
...They do and others take their places...
...That knocks holes in any schedule she may have, and if ther^.re younger ones to care for it is beyond possibility...
...But when he gets to be an adolescent these troubles will vanish...
...When that time comes she discovers there is a new set of troubles...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 25
