Page 6 - 1917 February - To Dragma

84 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI
MOTHERHOOD—A PROFESSION FOR COLLEGE
WOMEN
By V I R G I N I A E S T E R L Y , 5 '06 that the best Sunday and party clothes may be delicafe, lace-trimmed
Through many readings of the subject, I have come to an im-
passe—for motherhood is not a profession—and College often woe-
fully limits motherhood.
Motherhood is not a profession, and in the nature of things can
never be. It is based on emotion, not reason, or ambition. I
believe God is the only one who consciously intends motherhood for
every woman. It is usually developed haphazardly, and accepted
as a matter of course. Then again there is no remuneration except
emotional and spiritual—which in itself would take it out of the
rating of professions. There is a wonderful chance to develop a
profession from it, but it would be vicarious—a sort of super-nurse-
maid idea. At present motherhood is entered upon with shameful
ignorance and lack of preparation.
As to the limitations of college. Colleges usually train women
for remunerative professions, breed spiritual ambitions, sensitize
the nervous system, and advance the age of marriage by cultivating
a particularity of choice, and an ambition to practice the carefully
prepared profession. A l l these make for few children. Often as"
culture develops in women, courage shrinks, and I know many
college women who let physical fear of pain bar them from mother-
hood.
In spite of all this, I believe that the ideal mother, though not
the most prolific one, is the educated woman. A special education
for motherhood—the most universal occupation of womankind—has
been appallingly slow in development, due, I suppose, to the fact
that motherhood is a natural and not an intellectual attainment.
I wish that I could go forth as a crusader, demanding an education
in child raising for every woman—beginning with myself.
When we pass i r o m the haphazard motherhood which considers
clothing, feeding, and spanking her children to be the sum of her
duties—and this is the majority, as love counts as an instinct, not a
duty—we reach the intellectual mother who is after all the ideal.
The value of college education for mothers is, as I see it, a
training of the mind to grasp cause and effect—to weigh values—
to attain a sort of judicial balance, so that true standards can be
apprehended and intelligent processes can be developed. T h i s men-
tal power is applicable to every part of a child's development.
Suppose I take a few concrete incidents.
TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 85
Mrs. Haphazard, though dressing her child warmly in winter,
and lightly in summer, will have, for every day wear, coarse, out-
grown, and outworn garments, faded generally and often ragged,
and dainty—they may even have furs and jewelry.
Mrs. Intellectual knows that faded colors, rags, and ill-fit develop
slovenliness, and uses strong, plain, well-made clothes. She realizes
that furbelows develop a love of cheap finery, and insists always on
neatness and simplicity which alone give a chance for the develop-
ment of good taste in the child.
Like a preacher I have arrived at my "secondly"—feeding. Mother
Number One will feed a child to keep it quiet—will insist on an
early learning to eat everything "to save trouble"—(Dear Mrs. H a p -
hazard, to make trouble)—and awards it with that traditional reward
of good children—candy. Mother Number T w o knows that over-
loading by quantity or overtaxing by quality will tell inevitably on
a child's health, i f not immediately or if never directly in the diges-
tive organs, then sometime in the eyes, the throat, the nerves.
Just one more blow at Mrs. Haphazard. She spanks for every-
thing or overindulges, or (that worst brutality of all) says with
near-sighted pride, " I never spank my children in anger. I always
wait until we are perfectly calm and sometime afterward, explain
to the child the reason, and then spank him." Dear, cruel Mother
Haphazard! By that time the child has forgotten why and how he
was naughty, and he carries away only a terrible, grieved memory
of a spank without a cause. I f you fall, does Mother Nature say
to you—"Very well, hilt next week I shall in all calmness raise a
bump to remind you to be more careful next time." No, the bump
rises simultaneously with you.
It is wiser, kinder, and more effective to link closely cause with
effect—and more intelligent.
And yet, my sister woman as intelligent as I may agree with
Mrs. Haphazard—so there you are! There are no rules of mother-
craft. It is as individual as are the children. So if I write of it,
having studied no motHercraft, I must write of my own experiences.
Please forgive it, dear sisters, as being personal, and accept it as
what I have learned from being a mother.
T o begin with, I am a Martha with strong Mary learnings. My
"soul yearnings" are all for Mary's wings, but I usually find my
feet stuck fast to the rock that is Martha.
My idea of children before having any of my own was nebulous
and picturesque, and centered in visions of myself (somehow grown
miraculously delicate) dressed in a lacey, chiffoney tea gown effect,