Miserable Homes – Let Home Be Home Indeed

1874

What a mistake some good people make when they maintain, within the home circle, the rigid rule and decorum which becomes irksome even during committee meeting; when parents and children assemble at the table in solemn silence, and finish the meal within the prescribed minutes; and the late arrival at the breakfast table is scowled at, reprimanded, and remarked upon by mother and father, aunt and uncle, until the more punctual juniors come to regard him as a black sheep.

Oh, horrid home, where the little boys are never seen without their school books, or the little girl without a towel to hem; where ma no more dares to buy a rattle for the baby without mentioning the expenditure to pa, than anybody dares to throw open the parlor shutters or tuck up the curtains, or even at the table to have more of this dish or less of that.

The small boy who hates fat is not accommodated, as Jack Sprat's wife was, by anybody. The tall girl, who naturally likes pudding, has her triangular wedge, and no more; while the eldest son, outgrowing his liking for the dish, is reproved for the leaving of a piece on his plate.

Order and good housekeeping are charming, but the good order of a person, and the regular supply of rations necessary in a workhouse, are not suitable for home. Home is no home unless as far as reason will allow, the taste and wishes of the youngest child are consulted; unless there is freedom of word and action, speech and love, and good will without measure.

When I was a child home was the place where the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest. Everything was always forgiven there. There was no awful rod behind the door, no domestic dungeon under the roof. I do not think I grew up a worse woman because I was not whipped, or put to bed without my supper for dressing the bed-post in grandmother's best lace cap, or making paper dolls, against orders, in the front parlor — because life was not made a burden to me by forcing fat into my unwilling mouth, and sugar candy forbidden as though it was poison.

I could shed tears over the wretched homeless children of the house where discipline, as strict as that of the army, is maintained, though their fare is costly and the dress perfect, and their future prospects as to an inheritance final. They are more to be pitied than the children of any poor man, who clusters about their parents' knee without any fear of chiding; who are encouraged to tell their troubles, and kindly lead away from follies; and who will not, in later days, remember "pa" as the old gentleman who flogged them, and "ma" as the old lady who kept the keys, and boxed their ears for them, but think of them with that respect and reverence due by a child to its parents. — The Household.