Radiant Motherhood: A Book for Those Who are Creating the FutureStopes, Marie Carmichael
Science
Radiant Motherhood: A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future
Stopes, Marie Carmichael
Mothers
It is ignorance of this truth which has led to the dishonouring and
befouling of pure and beautiful youth, which is the original source of
the greater part of all the social troubles and the sex difficulties of
adolescence.
_The tiny child of two or three years old, just beginning to perceive
and piece together the psychological impressions stamped upon it by
its environment and the mind-states of those around it, is the weakest
link in the chain of our social consciousness._ Physically, the new
born babe for the first few days of its life is the weakest link in
the chain, the most liable physically to extinction, but spiritually,
socially the link most liable to warping, even destruction, is the
awakening mind, the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child
between two and three years old.
The mother or guardian then who desires her son or daughter to face
the great facts of life beautifully and profoundly should begin from
the first to mould that attitude in the child. It may appear to the
unthinking like building castles in the sand even to hint at truths
which it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers nothing of the
words used in later years. This is not so. What the child absorbs is
less the actual words than the tone of voice, the mode of expression
that spiritually impresses itself upon its own little soul.
Then there comes a later stage for most civilized human beings,
usually after they are three years old, when there arises the
possibility of permanent consciousness through permanent and specific
memory of things seen, done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present
generation will have some vivid memory, dating back to when they
were between three and four years old, when they received a strong
mental impression that grown-ups were lying to them or that there
was something funny or silly in questions which they asked. Perhaps
they noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was taken seriously,
questions about where pussy got her kittens were laughed at. Almost
each one of us who is to-day grown up then received some grievous
injury. This time is of great importance in the psychology not only
of the child, but of the whole adult race arising from the growing up
of each child, for one’s earliest memories are few but very vivid. As
things are to-day, generally between the ages of three and four or so,
in the months which are likely to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit
is wounded by the shock of a serious lie.
When as a mother or father you are with your children it is vital to
be most careful to answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the
questions which arise. No one can foresee which question and answer may
make that terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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