The Freedom of Life

Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt

"It is a universal rule that the more excited or naughty the children are, the more quiet and clear the mother should be. A mother who realizes this for the first time, and works with herself until she is free from all excited and strained resistance, discovers that it is through her care for her children that she herself has learned how to live. Blessed are the children who have such a mother, and blessed is the mother of those children!

It is resistance -- resistance to the naughtiness or disobedience in the child that not only hurts and tires the mother, but interferes with the best growth of the child.

"What!" a mother may say, "should I want my child to be naughty? What a dreadful thing!"

No, we should not want our children to be naughty, but we should be willing that they should be. We should drop resistance to their naughtiness, for that will give us clear, quiet minds to help them out of their troubles.

All vehemence is weak; quiet, clear decision is strong; and the child not only feels the strength of the quiet, decisive action, but he feels the help from his mother's quiet atmosphere which comes with it. If all parents realized fully that the work they do for their children should be done in themselves first, there would soon be a new and wonderful influence perceptible all about us."



Annie Payson Call 1904 (pages 208 & 209)





I have not read the whole book yet, but will here:
http://books.google.com/books?ct=result&id=VbURAAAAYAAJ&dq=the+freedom+of+life&ots=XKp6Tr8dZU&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&q=it+is+a+universal+rule+that+the+more+excited+or+nauty