The home: its work and influenceGilman, Charlotte Perkins
General
The home: its work and influence
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Home
But we have already seen that if there is one thing more than another
the home fails in, it is just this. If there is one duty more than
another the woman fails in, it is just this. Our homes are not planned
nor managed in the interests of little children; and the isolated
home-bound mother is in no way adequate to their proper rearing. This
is not disputable on any side. The death rate of little children during
the years they are wholly in the home and mother's care proves it
beyond question. The wailing of little children who live--or before
they die--wailing from bodily discomfort, nervous irritation, mental
distress, punishment--a miserable sound, so common, so expected, that
it affects the price of real estate, tenants not wishing to live near
little children on account of their cries--this sound of world-wide
anguish does not seem to prove much for the happiness of these helpless
inmates of the home.
Such few data as we have of babies and young children in properly
managed day nurseries, give a far higher record of health and
happiness. Not the sick baby in the pauper hospital, not the lonely
baby in the orphan asylum; but the baby who has _not_ lost his
mother, but who adds to mother's love, calm, wise, experienced
professional care.
The best instance of this, as known to me, is that of M. Godin's
_phalanstère_ in Guise, France. An account of it can be found in
the _Harper's Monthly_, November, 1885; or in M. Godin's own book,
"Social Solutions," translated by Marie Howland, now out of print. This
wise and successful undertaking had been going on for over twenty years
when the above article was written. Among its features was a
beautifully planned nursery for babies and little children, and the
results to child and parent, to home and state were wholly good. Better
health, greater peace and contentment, a swift, regular, easy
development these children enjoyed; and when, in later years, they met
the examinations of the public schools, they stood higher than the
children of any other district in France.
A newborn baby leads a far happier, healthier, more peaceful existence
in the hands of the good trained nurse, than it does when those skilled
hands are gone, and it is left on the trembling knees of the young,
untrained mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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