| Show THE autobiography OF A CHILD WITH TWO PARENTS from magazine Mas azine I 1 suppose it is because I 1 taught aught school before I 1 was as married that I 1 read every article I 1 see about the duty of oe the parent 1 I notice these articles always speak of oc the parent in the singular to cooperate with the teacher in the education of 0 the child I 1 also lind and in the magazines many suggestive essays on the training and government of children to rend read these articles one would suppose that mothers brought up their children all alone it it were lie not t for other articles on oil the management of husbands one would not know that there were any men at all in tile tho world or else ons one would think that though I 1 man dan as a husband is often trying man mail as a father is 13 always in accord with his wife this at all the way the I 1 mothers and fathers I 1 know behave in real clita tew few children have have any reason to believe that their parents are one until they ire are old enough to read iu in books about the un it edness of married people before this most ot of them lave been vividly conscious that they iley have haie two parents two distinct wills to defel with when 1 1 taught school I 1 felt ver very 3 sure that before lie he parent could cooperate with the teacher teach cr the p parents ar would first have to agree with each other as to how the child should be brought up since I 1 have a little girl of myown my own I 1 am even more certain cartain on chis point how important this subject seems to me I 1 can show in no way more clearly than by telling the story of my illy life for jt if I 1 were to be asked what was the most important influence in my illy training I 1 should reply at once the bet that I 1 had two parents I 1 want to say sa y in the beginning that my father and mother lived very happily together as people go in this world my mother was wretched when my lather father was away avay and though I 1 imagine lie he was less unhappy and even enjoyed enjoin ed his chis freedom lie he was vms always glad enough to get back to us all he was a good arid and in indulgent dul husband and never an indifferent one and nd we children loved him dearly even when our sympathies were with mother the first actual instance I 1 remember of my two parents each wanting different things of me inc was when I 1 was loss than six mother had bad got me die all ready to go out with her and was dressing while I 1 sat sal primly on the front porch proud as a peacock of ct my curls and my stiff dress and blue ribbons father came out on his way back to business ile he buthis hand on top of my head and rumpled my hair affectionately you will muss my hair said 1 I like the little miss prim I 1 was at this he burst out laughing then he suggested lets play ball mother told me inc to sit here till she comes I 1 replied doubtfully why he asked sos I 1 wont get my clothes mussed 1 I answered seriously mother had taken pains to explain to me tiow how much trouble it was to do up itte girls best diessel di esses and I 1 understood puff perfectly why 1 I must be careful but father l ald rit t ile he looked itt t IT pityingly frior mite mir he be sam said od shall play ball clothes or no clothes its all right get down from that chair I 1 slid down obediently and soon iad ad forgotten all about my dress aud nd ribbons when I 1 was well veil mussed up mother put in an appearance why esther she cried I 1 tell you to sit still 1111 until I 1 came youre a sight march up stairs miss ill have lave to change your dress again agaibi you dirty little thing i to cry Se eliere liere lillian my father carne came to the rescue you shant scold the child its not lot her fault I 1 told liar her to play ad I 1 ll 11 a thousand times rather see her as she is now than as slie she was ten t en minutes ago ive no doubt bod you would rapped out my exasperated mother A child should be dirty its shocking the way mothers teach their children thil chil dien to be vain and self conaci ous I 1 found her her ribbons like a girl of twenty my mother tapped her foot go upstairs up stairs esther she told lold me imperiously my father was fully launched on III his subject and said things that I 1 have no doubt were true about vanity and affectation mother listened to him with red cheeks 1 I think youre just as mean as you can b be e she told him to get that child all dirty when you know inow ive got all I 1 can jump to to get to edna allens aliens on time esther I 1 tell you to march right along upstairs and banging the door behind her mother hustled me into fresh clothes I 1 recall nothing of our visit but I 1 remember the ole scene at home as if it had occurred yesterday I 1 thought about it gravely and turned it over in my mind I 1 remember too that at tea father asked mother teasingly it if she were in ili a better temper and mother replied with smiles that she was but that all tile the same father was a mean thing and father replied that all women were alike so fussy about clothes then lie he pinched my illy cheek and asked me it if I 1 were going to be fussy about my clothes mylien alwn I 1 gr grew ew up and I 1 replied seriously no im not at which they both laughed there I 1 had it mother liked clean lothes clothes father I 1 heep my clothes clean it if I 1 want to father said so arid and lather father was bigger than mother I 1 was too young to realize that half he said was in tun fun to tease her but I 1 knew very clearly that there were two opinions in the house two courts of appeal things that father said you do mother let you pretending not to see things that mother forbade father encouraged you to do laughing right under mothers nose I 1 of course reason it out as distinctly as all that but what was more to the point I 1 idealized leali zed the condition and in various ways took advantage of it one immediate result of this first recognition of the two conflicting wills in our household was that we children made it difficult for mol mother a to dress us and were careless cai eles about ab oil it our frocks once they were on we knew father would uphold us and so he did unless out our untidiness interfered with wilh its his plans nul but we dil did nol dol stop plot at this by 1 the time I 1 was ten tea there were tour four of us and each of 0 Us youns young imps from tile the youngest to the oldest knew and acted on the knowledge that father and mother were vere of two minds about what was good for us we knew exactly which things to ask fathers permission about and which mothers for instance it if harry wanted to go fishing or swimming lie he went to father when it was a question of 0 parties we asked mother it if we night might go we learned early that tile the way to prevail against liar her was not to argue with her but to get fathers consent first tor for the thing we think she would approve of and then let him do the arguing for us we knew too that when he consented lie he knew quite as well weil as we that mother like it on the other liand hand when mother had agreed to something father did not wish us to do she would say to him 1 I must keep heep my promise aromise to the girls you should have said sooner that iou want them to go when poor father had a chance to refuse us and we all knew he one of the things lie he lias has always been most punctilious about is keeping promises so when mother said 1 I promised the girls she knew she had him children learn to act on oil knowledge long before they aie old enough to realize that they ibave have st it we three girls learned from our cradles you might say to manage father to take account of mood or occupation in ili short to approach him in lie he right way as women deal with men the world over mother would have been quite horrified had anyone told her that by example she taught us to use fathers peculiarities to accomplish com our own ends As one writes it down it sounds very shocking and I 1 must make it clear that we were not undutiful children only the ordinary american family on oil terms ot of intimacy py with our father and mother what went on in our house was only what occurs to a greater or less extent in III every house in the land I 1 think that in all al the foregoing I 1 have lave suggested one of the very worst insults of having two parents that is the tendency of children to take the side of one parent against tile the other it is impossible to prevent this aa long as parents dispute openly before their children one 0 ne has opinions or of one s own even at a very early age and small people over whose lead head discussion wages ages v and who have mutely taken sides will soon begin to express their opinions in words another result of fathers and mothers disputing openly before us was that imitating we in turn disputed with and criticized one another in our quarrels we sought the sympathy of whichever parent we believed most likely to agree with us 1 I the he result was that the house was broken up into two shifting camps sometimes sonic times father and mother against us but more often father and some of us pitted pilled against mother and the rest for instance harry would begin mother have I 1 got to t take ahe the girls to the candy pull tonight to night say have I 1 father would answer tor for mother 0 certainly r you have my illy son 1 I want to go with the fetters fellers poor harry would say 1 I dont see why harry cant go with us other boys take their sisters this from me for both winnie windie andl were sticklers klers for propriety and liked to be escorted by our brother we had got this idea from father who was very punctilious in such matters 1 I want to go with the tellers harry would repeat well why cant he go with the other boys its only a step and the girls could go with the howards as well as not mother mollier would argue in harrys behalf say father let me inc off ill take aint next time tile the tellers rather father nit harry to go with us A mother must I 1 1 I I 1 leally call y dont see why harry needs to go EO with them harry this from father you can stop slop arguing arguin g J said in the beginning you were to 10 go with the girls 11 cut but I 1 told the fellers falters 1 I said you were going and you are arci mother alother 1 I think lies hes real mean let him go off with the boa boys as it if he wants to winnie would contribute let him bini go for this once robert mother would plead but faeller would put an all end to all discussion with a Ills lc ilar karry ry will take its his sisters to the candy pull or he will stay slay at homo home but though it might be a the end for that meal we would fight it IL out at length afterward citing mothers and fal father ierg words but fathers and mothers small differences of opinion had more tar far reaching results in my life than any I 1 have mentioned results that were both tragic and absurd I 1 should say heie a word about my parents pai cuts r relations relar elar to each other mother is a little woman who has always kept her girlish figure and has still the lau laugh 0 11 of 0 a child she had married young and it was natural that father should always treat her as it if she were a little girl patronizing liar her when she expressed opinions and saying often right before us children 1 what an unreasonable baby aou ou are when aben she worried about our health or ar dont be silly lillian Lil liaTi or lie would put an end to liar her talk with a curt Ps pshaw liaw nonsense you dont know what you are talking about though this treatment sometimes annoyed her for the in moment ament I 1 know now that secretly she adored it and that seeming little and young ant am appealing was one of the strongest holds she had on him lie ile has always worshipped wor shipped liar her for just these things but how bow were we children to reason that all out A all I 1 we saw was that father sometimes sh showed owed mother scant respect and that she seemed annoyed by it As I 1 grew older I 1 was more and more distressed every time father and mother disagreed so when it came I 1 was quite ripe tor for the final scene in my little sero seriocomic serio comic tragedy when I 1 was about thirteen mother and tather father had a sharper dispute than ever it began in my presence and was about me the details do not matter at last my father sent me out of tile the room so that they could finish with greater freedom I 1 went out but I 1 stood in the hall a frightened trembling little creature listening to one of the quarrels I 1 now low am 1111 sure all married people have mother and father lost sf sight ailt of the original cause of the dispute and branched olt off into other subjects at last I 1 heard beard my mothers childish voice lifted I 1 in a sob she sounded just like winnie arid and the noise of her crying just as if she were a little girl frightened me more than anything I 1 have heard since then broken with sob abs 1 I 1 caught the terrible words it you loved me you say such things to me if I 1 loved you 11 came my fathers voice its you who have lave shown show yourself indifferent to lo me I 1 I 1 can call remember even today every word they said and I 1 know now nov that they have said any of them it if they loved each other tenderly presently my mother burst out crying harder than ever and my father tried to stop her telling her that the children would hear liar her bidding her to be quiet saying all till the things in short that a man says who is at his wits end at sight I 1 ot of his cifes tears and at that my anger blazed up against him for my mother continued contina a to cry at last he went out of the room leaving her there sobbing I 1 clenched rny my fists in anger I 1 longed to tell him what I 1 thought of him for making my mother cry at that moment I 1 almost hated him this scene gave me a thread on which I 1 strung like beads various events as they passed my father and mother love e each ach other that was what I 1 thought each had said the other was indifferent and each had brought forth striking proof it must bl be e so like all children of my generation I 1 read a great many stories of which t the he h heroine was a r beautiful little girl who would find a way of bringing together an unloving father and mother before one could say jack robinson indeed in my story bool books cs little girls often by their sunny sweet presence regenerated whole families including grandparents and distant cousins such a heroine I 1 decided to be but somehow tile the opportunity never came and I 1 had to re main a forlorn little spectator ot of ahe aie silent tragedy I 1 believed to be going on under our root roof now I 1 knew why mother forgot to do some of the things father asked her to do she lid did not love him I 1 was more than a spectator I 1 was a silent little judge as well now on one side now on the other of 0 course with jus jis there was no real reason for all my heroics as I 1 gradually found out ilien r hen I 1 became alf V lily illy mothers companion and learned f from liar her own lips how happy she and father had always been I 1 suffered buffered needlessly but there are a great many children who have gone through what I 1 did chivalrous little boys who hotly holly take their mothers part in the small family dissensions dissension sr and who very soon go through this course cours a of reasoning it is wrong for in me a to speak sharply to mother father aa says ys so BO but father speaks sharply him self therefore father is wrong I 1 by the time I 1 was sixteen I 1 had outgrown the melancholy romance I 1 had woven about mother and add father dut but another difficulty had already presented itself now thou though il I 1 see it all from a different point of view I 1 remember vividly the mortification and anger it caused me when I 1 was sixteen or seventeen old enough to be self conscious old enough to have boys as callers instead of 0 playmates father began to exercise a sort of jealous oversight of me that clas |
