In The Woman's Voice Forum: Parental Authority over Their Children

An important subject in child-rearing, one that haunts our mothers and leaves them perplexed... treated at length in The Woman's Voice forum by three of our mothers, experienced and of broad culture, the ladies:

1 — Alice Alfred Nakkash
2 — Nazira Zain al-Din Halabi
3 — Emily Fares Ibrahim

Mrs. Nakkash: We feel in these days that authority is in a stubborn crisis. There are the parents, who want to impose their authority, and the children, who recoil from that authority and that dominance. Now authority is a duty upon the parents, and its exercise does not begin when the child grows up and reaches the age of seven; fathers and mothers must begin from earliest childhood. On the other hand, they should remember that a display of dominance is not authority; its meaning must be understood: it is to make the life of the grown-ups a part of the life of the little ones, with no vast gulf between the two. If children are not accustomed to submitting to authority, they will find it difficult later on. For example, if the child is not accustomed to respecting others, his respect for others will be lacking in the future. And authority does not mean violence on the part of the parents; it means proper supervision and careful study of their children's conduct at home and at school, with family and with friends, at work time and at play time, and with persons of their own class or with servants and others.

Mrs. Halabi: The father and the mother must be the upright model for the children, for the children take them as the aim, the goal, and the example that must be followed. And there must be cooperation between the teachers at school and the family at home, so that the desired end may be achieved: bringing up the child soundly.

Nakkash: There are children who behave rightly by nature, and others who are spoiled from infancy; and present-day life, by its very nature, is what delays the proper training of children — for life itself is complicated, a constant struggle — and if children do not make respect and good conduct a habit, it is impossible for them to grow up cooperative at home and outside it. Likewise, respect for the various authorities must be insisted upon: the spiritual, the governmental, the scholastic, and the rest.

Mrs. Emily: If we ask what the foundations of the family are, we would answer that they are many things; but the most important of these foundations, in my opinion, is affection — that sentiment bound up with and composed of tenderness, trust, and understanding among the members of one family. And this affection is hard to achieve and to carry out if the parents have not practiced it between themselves, and then between the two of them together and their children. Every act should rest on the basis of this affection, not on the basis of imposing an authority laid down for fathers over sons!

Nakkash: Very often we find children who do not obey their parents because these do not know how to command; and how many a child is pushed toward something important and rewarded, then punished for a trifling matter!

Emily: Very often children hide very important matters from their families, either out of fear or because the bond of affection between the two sides is missing; and the cause of this, in my view, is that fathers assert their presence only to display authority. Likewise it is a mistake to let children go their own way and do as they please.

Halabi: When understanding exists between the mother and the father, the children absorb it; fear disappears from the children, and they feel that the parents' presence is not for authority but for upbringing and care.

Nakkash: Authority never means tyranny and harshness.

Emily: If children are trained to order from infancy, it becomes something natural to them. The very course of life must contain order, so that the child grows familiar with it and it becomes part of his character and his nature. I have tried this myself with my children and tested it myself — especially as I am bringing up my children during my husband's absence, and in one of the most difficult stages of their lives: I mean, they are at the age of adolescence. My eldest son is eighteen years old and the other sixteen. I fix, in agreement with them, one time for the cinema and another for meeting their friends. And I must mention here that I play a large part in choosing their friends for them, because this choice is very important. This is because I feel that however much I try to create the feeling of affection and friendship between us, they are bound to tell their friends things they do not tell me in full; and for this reason I take pains over the selection of their friends.

Nakkash: We do not raise the child for ourselves alone but for life itself.

The elements that accompany our conduct toward our children from infancy play a great part in their lives when they grow up.

Emily: Yes. I come back to my experience in my children's lives: I have accustomed them to feel that my presence is not for authority but for love as well, and for meeting their wishes. My children tell me about everything that happens to them, adventures and all, and so I have come to be widely informed about all the small details of their lives. When I sense danger I turn them away from the thing before harm occurs, and I try to do so with all caution and tact, so as to secure the result and secure their trust in me.

Halabi: Now, when there is a family of two or three children, whose temperaments and inclinations differ, how do we reconcile them?

Emily: In the past they used to say that the eldest child gives the example to the younger, and I never felt the weight of that saying; but now I understand very well that the younger of my children have been much influenced by the conduct of their eldest brother. For example, we used to call my third son 'the naughty one,' but now his conduct is excellent.

Nakkash: If the parents take pains over the upbringing of the first child, the upbringing of the remaining children becomes easier.

Emily: If a child remains shut up in himself, we do him wrong if we neglect him. It is wise, for example, to suggest to him that he is responsible for the running of the family's life; so we let the children share in opinion, and prove to him that his opinion has been taken into account. In this way there grows in him a personality and a self-regard that make him confident in himself, and at the same time we turn him away from certain questions that may arise at a particular age.

Nakkash: When do we begin that?

Emily: That depends on the child himself: there are children who mature before their time, just as others are late in maturing. And allow me to mention here, in passing, that the changes that come over the girl and the boy at the age of adolescence are very important, and it is for the mother especially to give this period of her children's lives great attention. She must make them feel that it is a perfectly natural condition, and so relieve them of the feeling of the inferiority complex that so often arises at this age. We can draw their attention away from these matters by occupying them with sports, for instance, and with bearing responsibilities in the home; so I change their views and discuss with them until together we reach the sound solution. Likewise I explain every matter to them so that they may be enlightened, and so that we leave no room for friends to give them twisted or mistaken information.

Nakkash: This is a very necessary subject, but it is not our business today, for if we plunged into it we would never finish. It must be left for another occasion, to be examined in the detail it deserves.

Halabi: What, I wonder, is the method of upbringing that ought to be followed with a child of thirteen, say? I have a shy boy of this age; if we make remarks to him, he grows shyer still. How, then, do we handle the matter?

Emily: Problems are bound to arise in every family. So leave him room to open the matter to you and give you his opinion. If we leave them this room for inquiry and discussion until the desired result is reached, we shall have made him believe in himself and be satisfied that he has done something. The parents are the ones responsible.

Nakkash: And here each of the parents must respect the orders given by the other, even if they are mistaken. This makes us think before giving orders.

Emily: Likewise one must sometimes give way over unreasonable things, on the ground that the child still needs greater maturity and further progress.

Halabi: And how do we cooperate?

Nakkash: This too depends on the children themselves: we do not treat the difficult child as we treat the one of delicate feelings. In any case, they must be accustomed to turn to their parents not for authority alone, but in all their affairs, private and public.

Halabi: And the children must feel the presence of affection, but with a measure of firmness and force.

Emily: And when we decide on a punishment, we must hold to it and carry it out, and leave no room at all for sentiment. Punishment is necessary, but if it is not carried out its effect is lost.

Nakkash: Of course firmness is indispensable, for if we show softness once, it becomes easy for the child to object afterwards.

Halabi: To what degree do you two think the father's authority should stand in relation to the mother's authority?

Emily: The mother stays longer with her children, and a great responsibility falls on her; but even so she must cooperate with the father in the upbringing of the children. And one of the most dangerous things is for her to hold out the threat of the father and of his punishment: first, she weakens her own authority; and second, she creates hatred in the children's hearts toward their father.

Nakkash and Halabi: That is a flagrant error. Threatening with the father is of no use whatever.

Emily: The parents must watch their talk and their behavior before their children: neither should speak of the other in his absence except with good, and neither should criticize the other before the children; the children must be made to feel the existence of mutual trust. Likewise, lying must vanish altogether from the family. If the mother lies, her son picks it up from her, and so she accustoms him to lying — and, as it were, accustoms him also not to believe her afterwards.

Nakkash: Likewise the authority of the teachers must be upheld when the child complains to his mother of his teacher at school. Respect for teachers is necessary and their authority is important, and here there must be cooperation between the home and the school.

Halabi: In the family where respect and love are mutual, the upbringing of the children grows lighter and easier.

Emily: And the inclination of each child must be observed separately; for each child there is a particular means and a particular manner of persuasion, and one makes do with what it yields. There are some children who understand and do what is asked of them without argument, and there are others who will not heed a word until they are convinced of what is in it, and so they dispute and discuss what they want.

Halabi: What do children hate in their families? They feel that one is favored by the parents over the rest and set apart from the others; and this is unjust, for it breeds rancor in the hearts of the little ones — just as excess of authority, and differing treatment between one and another, also breeds rancor among them toward one another.

Emily: There is a small incident that happened to me with my father, which taught me to avoid the like with my children. My father was stern, of intense dominance, and I felt his presence only in the display of that dominance. When I married I felt freedom, and my husband, unlike my father, was broad of horizon. On New Year's Eve we decided to go to the Hotel Saint-Georges. I set about preparing my evening gown — and my father in earlier days had been very hard on me and very strait-laced. The feeling of being deprived of certain things had kept growing within me; and to make up for the deprivation I had suffered before, on the night of the party I deliberately passed before my father in my gown, open at the back! But afterwards I suffered greatly. Even so, I felt as though I had avenged myself for his former harshness toward me, and I always recall that incident as proof that that suppressed feeling found itself an outlet later on. And so I have taken care to avoid this with my children, so as not to foster in their hearts the feeling of deprivation and repression.

Nazira: I know a lady, now advanced in years, who is still resentful of her parents because they used to drink tea when she was small and never invited her to share it with them. She suppressed that feeling within herself until it grew strong, and its effect grew with it and has not left her; it still roams in her mind. Even now, when she remembers this matter, she is much affected by it and asks herself: why did they set themselves apart from her??

Emily: Here we come back once more to the necessity of affection, frankness, and love between children and their parents.