Several said they did not try to advise their children about their
work, because they knew they didn't understand. One Russian mother was
very much worried about the future of her two boys, aged seventeen and
thirteen. The older was working as a cash boy, earning twelve dollars
a week, and the younger was working outside of school hours, sewing
caps. The mother said that their father had learned one trade and
followed that, but that her children changed work every two or three
months. She seldom asked why they changed, because she did not
understand conditions in Chicago.
Most of the women confessed to being equally at sea with regard to
their children's amusements. Some of them accepted with resignation
the fact that they could not understand, saying, as one woman did,
that she thought they had too much freedom, but that young people
lived very differently here. Some of the mothers, on the other hand,
while thinking that young people in general had too much freedom,
thought that they did not need worry about their own children,
because they had been able to make companions of their daughters. A
few even were found who approved of the freedom allowed to young
people, but thought children should be taught "more morality."
It is scarcely possible to say too much of the failure of the American
community to assist the immigrant family at this point. It has neither
tried to make the fathers and mothers understand modern American ways,
nor has it exercised any community supervision so that the girl is in
reality safe at work and at play. Furthermore, some of the agencies
from whom the most help might have been expected have deliberately
passed over the mother to educate the child, hastening the process by
which the child becomes Americanized in advance of his parents.
The Church has had its share, as may be seen from the statement of one
priest who holds a responsible position in the Church in Chicago. He
believes that the parents are usually too advanced in years to
assimilate or utilize whatever instruction is given them. In his
opinion the ignorance of the parent is responsible for many bad
tendencies in the children, but the difficulty can be corrected more
surely and satisfactorily by dealing directly with the children.
The attitude of the public schools is illustrated by an interview with
the principal of a public school in an immigrant neighborhood. He
says that his contact has been only with the children. The
foreign-born parents of the first generation are, in his opinion, "so
incorrigibly stupid" that any attempts to educate them are a waste of
time. The only possible way, he thinks, of reaching the parents is
through the children.
THE JUVENILE COURT
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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