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Show Children in Home by No Means an Essential Part of Married Happiness By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK, University of Illinois. Children are not always a comfort to a home nor do they always trengthen the love between man and wife as is commonly supposed. A home without children may still be a home. It is true that children may act as disciplinary agents to their parents; they may teach their elders economy and patience and unselfishness and self-control, but these virtues vir-tues may be acquired by other and less strenuous means. The more I see what trouble and worry and sacrifice they entail upon their parents, the more I am resigned to my fate. Youth is not always considerate of old age. Ii has its own serious problems to solve and even when it gives its attention to old age, it not infrequently does it grudgingly. Even if one has children, he cannot take it for granted that his old age will be a sheltered one. Besides while old age is beautiful, it is not always docile. With young married people, when the child comes, too often all the sentiment, the tender love, the little attentions that each showered upon the other, goes to the child. Everything must give way to the child. Childless pairs, growing old together have many compensations for their failure to have children. Having only each other, if true love has brought them together, the lack of children draws them still closer. American Magazine. |
