Page 7 - 1917 February - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 87

86 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA 0 MICRON PI Motherhood is the great, single, unalterable duty of womankind,
which has for its rewards mother-love, a passion of possession and
sitting under a shaded lamp and rocking to sjeep—shades of mo- protection, and the love of children that is instinctive, everlasting,
dernity!—a little curly-golden-haired girl. O r of the same golden unquestioning, uncriticizing, and unseeking; and which has for
curls flushed and tousled and fallen fast asleep among her toys. its fulfilment the continuance of humanity, without which God's
wonderful world so exquisitely and intricately developed would lack
So much for dreams and, alas! for reality. Martha has stepped its object and its spiritual crown,
in, and I know now that lace and children do not exist together, i
that to let a child become exhausted to the point of sleep before it
goes to bed is bad for habits, health, and spirit, and that a careful Kappa Chapter at Home to All
tucking into an early bed is the only just treatment of the child A L P H A O's!
with maybe—here Mary intervenes—one doll hugged close. And
most unkind disillusion—my golden-curls have metamorphosed into Place, Lynchburg. Time, June 21-26, 1917
two sturdy daughters with hair as straight as a string and, like
my own, of an indeterminate taupe!

It is not the science we learn, nor the letters, nor the mathematics
that help in mothering. Though my college hygiene helped a little,
the plumber helped as much—though pedagogy taught me how to
teach my children, it is another woman who teaches them. Though
my music study taught me what is best in that art, I find a lullaby
more grateful to a child than opera, and a monotonous intoning of
the days' events most grateful of all. There's someone else who
will give them all that I learned at college, save that one best thing—
a spiritual balance—a power of weighing values, of anticipating
effects.

It is more or less easy to dispose of material processes in an
intelligent way. Then comes the great and terrible problem of
moral and spiritual direction. I say "direction" very humbly, for
my children's spirits are as distinct and independent as my own.
And I should no more expect them to be like mine or to hold my
ideals than that I should expect a bird to fly in only one direction.

I can only teach truth, gentleness, kindness, honesty, and even
those are not absolute, but are subject to interpretation. My inter-
pretation is not yours—nor my child's, and I can only watch in
travail of spirit, the growth of soul in my children, and with patience
and justice direct, not make character.

No, motherhood is not a profession, but it is an all-engrossing
occupation and a developer of powers. We learn to recognize the
importance of minimizing Confusion and her handmaiden Strife,
the value of Peace, the value of simple living and much high think-
ing, the fallacy of that bugbear of centuries, the utter self-sacrifice
of the mother to her children, realizing that a spiritually, mentally,
or physically impoverished mother is a mill-stone, not a spur, to
the spirit. We learn also to weigh all values and to live and teach
only the great essentials, cutting out ruthlessly the trivialities that
hinder—to give the soul a chance.