What Kind of Mother Are You?

It may be that you are among the most clear-sighted women in all the world. It may be that your knowledge of life has reached a high degree of refinement. It may be that your understanding of affairs and your experience in every condition and circumstance help you to know the right path. But when matters concern your child, you show an evident weakness and a total failure of judgment. Is that not true, Madam? What kind of mother, then, are you? Can you claim that you behave sensibly in your treatment of your child?

To help you answer these questions in an easy way, we set out below descriptions of four types of women. To which type do you belong?

The Anxious Mother

Her boundless devotion and energy would make her a perfect mother, since her thoughts are centered on her beloved child night and day. But it would be better for this mother to reduce her vigils and her devotion somewhat, for to this type of mother motherhood is a genuine preoccupation of mind. She lives in terror and dread of some catastrophe befalling her child; and if anyone talks with her, he receives the impression that her child is exposed to the gravest dangers, such as no child like him in the whole world has ever faced. The child brought up by such a mother will not be happy, however great her care and solicitude for him.

For the mother's fear, which the child observes again and again, seeps into his little head; it may affect him and make him listless, oversensitive, and weak when he grows up.

As for the mother herself, life becomes unbearable to her, since she cannot leave the child alone even for a few moments, believing that there is no one who understands him or cares for him more than she. This kind of love is pure selfishness. And the anxious mother, absorbed to this degree in the privileges and duties of motherhood, ends by working against her child's happiness and success. She is of the type that forbids the child to spend long hours over his lessons for fear he will tire, or keeps him from running for fear he will fall — and so on and so forth...

As for the child, he will come to realize what power his small person holds over his mother — a realization that leads him to exploit that power; corruption then creeps into his nature, and when he grows up he is selfish and generally disliked.

The Tiresome Mother

She resembles the mother we have just described in many respects; motherhood, in her code, is a genuine preoccupation of mind, and her thoughts and her conversation are fixed upon her child. Husband, relatives, and friends come second in importance. If you go to visit her, her child is with her the whole time, interjecting silly, feeble remarks into the middle of the conversation, while she looks at him with such pride and boastfulness that the visitor boils with vexation and wishes she could slap him to teach him manners. But you must know, dear reader, that the child in such circumstances is not at fault: he has grown used to being the center of attention, and naturally he cannot understand that grown-ups care about other matters. If you were that visitor and spoke of the war, the mother would promptly begin complaining that her poor child needs clothing because cloth is distributed under the ration-card system; and if you spoke of the weather, she would surely claim that the state of the weather affects her child. True, she may sometimes admit that her child has "slipped" — which she attributes to his extraordinary intelligence and his superior sensibility — and then she finds excuses for not disciplining him, because she does not wish to kill the spirit of independence in him. Such a mother is a heavy burden on her friends and acquaintances, and she will be a heavy burden on her child and on herself as well.

The Neglectful Mother

Though she too loves her child exceedingly, she will not consent to sacrifice her social life for his sake: she is present at every invitation and every gathering, and never misses a card game or a visit to the cinema. True, she sees her child for an hour or two a day, when the mood takes her, and falls to kissing and petting him. But she does not like to look after him, or wash him, or sit with him at his mealtimes or his bedtime. Naturally, if such a mother is rich, her child will receive a sound, healthy upbringing under the care of a capable nurse; but he will forever lack his mother's affection and care, which nothing can replace.

The Wise Woman

She has her faults too — and is there any human being immune from error? But nature has granted such a mother a dose of balanced wisdom that produces a complete mother.

There is not the least doubt of her love, or of the time she consecrates to her child; but her instinct and her reason tell her that there are millions of women in this world who enjoy the privileges and the rights of motherhood just as she does.

She knows the danger that comes of blind love. She wants her child to grow up free and unconfined, enjoying his mother's affection and protection; yet she acts with all deliberateness, and thinks and works with independent judgment as soon as she finds that her child's mental faculties have begun to do their work. Likewise she knows when to require obedience of him and when to pour out her love upon him.

A mother of this type can exert an immense influence on her child's present and his future. And the credit for her success goes to her mind and to her deep-rooted parental tenderness, free of blind selfishness.