The Woman's Voice Roundtable: Our Mothers' Views on Child-Rearing

The “Woman's Voice” roundtable met this month in the salon of Mrs. Salwa Dimashqiyah al-Said — that venerable salon which, in the recent past, witnessed and heard the proceedings of gathering after gathering, alive with literary, social, and patriotic exchanges and debates, all of them presided over by the elegant, eloquent mistress of the house — Mrs. Julia Tu'mah Dimashqiyah, God rest her soul.

The talk of the roundtable turned on important questions concerning the upbringing of our children at the age of adolescence. The salon brought together a select company of the ladies of our polite society. Mrs. Faiza Antiba and Mrs. Sabiha Faris hold, besides their practical experience, the master's degree in education; and Mrs. Hassana al-Daouk and Mrs. Salwa al-Said possess an experience with their own children no less rich and useful than that of their two colleagues. Each of the four ladies has several children at this delicate age — I mean from eleven to about twenty — when the personality either crystallizes and settles, psychologically, emotionally, and mentally, or the seeds of anxiety and inner disintegration grow within it... This is a very difficult stage, in which father and mother play a fundamental and important part.

Each of us took her comfortable seat, and questions drawn from the reality of our daily life, touching the upbringing of our adolescent children, began to rain down upon Faiza Antiba, the leader of the roundtable.

Is freedom necessary? To what extent, and when should it be given?
Is it permissible to look into the children's private affairs — their letters and diaries? And—?
Is it well for a mother to give her children the chance to talk with her on every subject, the important and the trifling alike?
Or must a slight barrier remain between them, to preserve authority and respect?

Salwa said: “We hear a great deal about the need to give the child freedom of speech before his parents. And I know that the repression found in our children comes from fear of their parents and from not confiding to them their problems and troubles. But at the same time I consider too much talk impudence, and so I prefer that some barrier remain between parents and children.”

With this question Salwa turned to Faiza and Sabiha for enlightenment...
Sabiha answered her: “I believe it is better for the child to speak before his parents of everything that stirs in his mind, even at the sacrifice of a little of that awe and dread which some parents desire. For the mother who opens that road before him helps him to a right understanding of those natural problems and secrets which he meets at this stage. Either he finds the answers to his questions at home, or he finds them outside. And there lies the danger... for the ignorant friend may construe and explain the truth to him in a twisted fashion that harms him and deforms his view of life...”

Then Salwa asked the company's opinion of the cinema, which she considers the most dangerous means of spreading corruption in the life of the growing youngster. A committee should be formed to supervise films, setting a minimum age for attendance at films that deal with subjects which inflame the imagination and the sexual instincts.

Then Hassana agreed with her view, on the whole. “The cinema is useful in certain respects, above all the artistic, the scientific, and the musical. It is a means of general culture.”

“Yes,” Faiza agreed, “certain films must be kept from the young... And fortunately, in these last years new films have been shown that are useful and delightful, enjoyed by grown-ups and youngsters alike — such as ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.’ Protecting the children is necessary, but it must be a positive protection — especially now that the cinema has become one of the strongest and best-loved amusements with them these days...”

As for Sabiha, she showed us a second solution to that problem. She said: “At this age the adolescent's vitality and energy are very strong and abundant... They must be spent in useful channels, other than the cinema, which strengthen his personality and give it form... My two boys, for instance, spend their leisure hours at drawing and at scouting — with pleasure, delight, and profit!”

“But our children want to go to the cinema more than anything else,” Salwa broke in. “What is to be done, then? Shall we forbid them to go? Would that not create in them psychological complexes we ought to avoid!?”

“There is no need to forbid them the cinema,” Faiza returned. “Go with them from time to time, and make of the occasion a means of warning them against false understanding, and of showing your love for them by sharing in their lives!”

Salwa pursued her questioning: “The mother must be frank in matters of sex — so say the authorities on upbringing — and must explain those secrets to her children. But in truth I do not know how to open such a conversation with them in a natural, everyday way.”

Hassana interrupted her: “Here another use of the cinema appears. It makes it easy for us to open this subject in the manner we wish. Thus we acquaint our children with those facts (which appear distorted in most films) in an easy, scientific way.”

“The growing child sees in those scenes upon the screen,” Faiza reassured us, “only what his mind and his intellectual maturity allow. His understanding of these matters which the films touch upon differs altogether from ours — we grown-ups — in depth and in range. The child sees in them only what his mental and bodily maturity and his personal experience interpret for him. And his interpretations are, on the whole, innocent and simple.”

“Is it among a mother's duties to know whom her child keeps company with, and to cut off undesirable attachments?”

This delicate question came from Salwa.

To Hassana's tongue came the common proverb: “Everything forbidden is desired,” Salwa dear. “If you cut off the friendship binding your daughter to another girl who is undesirable for reasons of your own, you encourage your daughter to see her in secret, and perhaps to grow more attached to her than before. Better to drop her a remark from time to time, until she gives her up of her own accord, and...”

“That is true,” Salwa assented. “Better that I encourage her to keep company with better and finer friends, without pressing her to abandon the one I do not care for...”

Sabiha and Faiza nodded their heads in agreement, and Faiza went on:

“We must not forget that the home belongs to young and old alike. If our children feel that, we need have no fear for them from bad companions; for they will not keep company with them outside the house, and will bring home only those with whom they are in understanding and harmony. Our greatest guarantee — we parents' guarantee — in the choosing of good friends for our children is to plant and foster in their souls the essential qualities and virtues we desire; then their choosing of persons who possess those qualities becomes a natural thing.”

Sabiha objected to that idea and set out her belief: “The child's inner state, at the age of adolescence — that is, for four or five years — settles on nothing definite. It may turn and shift several times, so that he is drawn to the very contrary of what is in him. The mother, this being so, must be watchful, must observe those changes, and must give him a great deal of her time and care.”

Hassana took the side of Faiza, who holds for raising the adolescent's moral level; and Salwa took Sabiha's theory, knowing how great is the adolescent's love of knowledge and curiosity, which drives him to try out many things that are dangerous because of his inner instability.

Hassana and Faiza joined in refuting that theory, saying: “Temptation is always present in our society, and the danger of falling into it is present — we cannot keep our children away from this society and this danger. Better, then, to arm them with the values we desire — especially,” as Hassana explained, “since there are trials and experiences into which the adolescent falls of which the mother knows nothing.” “We must have faith in the essential values,” Faiza continued, “which we plant in our children; they make us trust them and believe in their power to overcome the trials that come their way, and they give them a basic immunity against the further trials of the future.”

Out of this discussion arose a question that Hassana and Salwa wished to lay before the roundtable. Is it better for the child at this age to go to a boarding school, or to stay at home among his parents and his brothers and sisters? Especially when the family is large, when it is difficult to attend to each member of it separately, and when the child is “rosse,” as they say, with his brothers and sisters...

Faiza's opinion was outspoken: “Better that the child stay at home, save in certain particular cases; and even then he must on no account be sent away altogether. For boarding school is not a punishment, and it is the parents' duty to oversee their children's upbringing, to watch over their culture, and to surround them with love, care, and a wakeful, conscious vigilance...”

“But in that way we have stripped the boarding school of all care and attention,” Sabiha countered. (Here it must be said that Salwa, Sabiha, and Hassana have each placed some of their children in boarding school.) “That is contrary to fact. Contact between the administration and the pupils is always there, and guidance and supervision never leave them. I prefer the boarding school, particularly in situations like mine, which require of us moving, travel, and change. Boarding life is easier to supervise, and the choice of companions is better and surer...”

“On the contrary,” Faiza answered her, “the outside world is easier to supervise, even though in the boarding school we confine our children's circle within a narrow point.”

“Very well,” Salwa agreed, “but I too prefer the boarding school for the children, when the mother cannot devote her time and herself to them for reasons that concern her husband and her social life. Boarding life wipes out social distinctions, and gives a uniform order in dress and in thought, mentality, and age...”

“But we must remember that there are differences in society which it is good for the child to come to know in his early years, so that they do not take him by surprise afterward.” So said Faiza, and she asked: “Is our aim in our society today that our children should follow some fixed, rigid system that relieves us of their upbringing — or do we mean to build their personalities for the future?... That cannot be done within a set system which takes no account of individual differences and does not analyze the individual's problems in the light of individual study... Are all the necessary kinds of nourishment to be found on the school table? The answer is no. If we consider this side alone, we shall have fallen short of our duties in raising our children.”

Sabiha pressed her point once more: “The boarding school is necessary for the children when life demands of the parents travels and visits that bring on a kind of disorder... And understanding and friendship must reign between parents and children, so that they do not feel that being sent to school is a punishment, but that their parents do it out of love for them, and out of the desire to form their personalities in a calm and ordered atmosphere...!”

“Which is to say,” Salwa concluded, “the boarding school solves a problem for the parents, not for the children. But let us not forget, in the end, that our social life hangs, before all else, upon the building of a future for our children...”

This declaration was met with complete assent, and our mothers went out from Salwa's house still pursuing the discussion...