Cleanliness and the Child

Cleanliness... what a tempting word to couple with the child! And is it like him to give it any weight, when his life is confined to playing with water, bits of wood, colored pencils, and the like? Your pardon, Madam — the intent here is not to excuse your child for drawing on the walls of your house, but to soften the force of your anger at seeing him with his clothes all stained. He has his rights, and he has his duties...

Rarely does a child finish his play in the garden and come indoors without his mother descending upon him, scolding him for his dirtiness and thereby spoiling for him the pleasure of play. How is he to combine his fun with clean clothes? And if he tries, he loses his feeling of reassurance and ease. So, to avoid robbing your child of his ease, Madam, what would you say to dressing him in clothes that will bear constant washing and ironing, so that when they get stained you may endure the staining with fine patience?

The child usually takes the comfort he gets from wearing a garment as the measure of its quality or the lack of it, for to him there is no difference between the finest kind of cloth and the shabbiest, between the most complicated of models and the simplest, so long as wearing it gives him comfort. By way of example, hear, Madam, what one child said to his mother on this score. She once dressed him in new clothes and kept forbidding him to play, for fear of staining them. He said to her, with childhood's familiar artlessness: "Take your new suit and give me the ragged old one." Could anything show more plainly than these words that the child wants to wear a garment he is comfortable in? And if every child could have his say on this subject, he would say the very same thing.

The overwhelming majority of children need to bathe daily with the assistance of grown-ups, because most of them understand bathing as merely a wetting with water; hence every mother must watch over her child while he washes, until he proves himself able to bear the responsibility alone.

It is only logical that a child should stain his clothes, so do not expect the impossible of him, Madam; and let it not slip from your mind that he is not one of those inclined by nature to cleanliness. If he shows a wish to wash of his own accord, it is only because of a rebellion stirred up in him by your constant urging.