Essay No. 12
The Decay of Parental Responsibility
BY
Prebendary Carlile
Founder and Honorary Chief Secretary
of the Church Army.
THE decay of the sense of parental responsibility is one of the most disquieting symptoms of the present day. The family is the unit upon which all Christian civilisation is founded, and in proportion as the family is disintegrated, so also will follow the disintegration of Christian morals and Christian sanctions.
The responsibility attaching to parenthood is directly imposed upon the parent by the Almighty, from the fact of the parent being the voluntary agent by which is brought into the world, for good or for evil, .a human creature. The responsibility is a heavy—nay, a terrible one ; for it extends not only to the well-being of the body of the child, but to that of the soul, and upon the due exercise of parental authority there depends in very large measure the future of that soul for all eternity. That the responsibility sits very lightly upon the majority of mankind is no reason for regarding it as abrogated. It is impossible for any parent to abdicate his rights
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and shuffle off his duty upon the municipality or the State, or any other person or body of persons whomsoever. Nor can the State interfere properly with that right and that duty further than by safeguarding the one and seeing that the other is duly performed.
The tendency of the day is all the other way about. For years education at the ratepayers' cost and at the expense of the State has been at work, undermining and blunting the sense of responsibility of the parent for the training of his children, until education has come to be regarded as the exclusive concern of the State, with which the parent has little or nothing to do. Free meals ate another step in the same direction. No doubt we shall soon see free clothing, and then perhaps free housing, until the dreams are realised of those who deny to parents any right over their children or duty towards them, and advocate the bringing up of every child as a child of the State, unwatched, unloved by any human parent, unknown to and unknowing the authors of its being. From such a catastrophe may Heaven protect us !
It is a sad and humiliating thing to read, as one does not infrequently in the Press, of a father or mother appearing in the police court and solemnly protesting that some miserable little boy or girl, having the misfortune to own the applicant as parent, is beyond parental control. No doubt there are cases in which the applicant is chiefly influenced by
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a desire to get the child sent to an industrial school, where it will be maintained at the public expense without trouble to the parent; but there are other cases in which the parent is honestly convinced that the child is beyond control, and that repeated experience has shown it to be useless to attempt to exercise authority. One is tempted to inquire, "Are birch-rods no longer to be purchased ? " But these parents are the very ones who would cry out in horror and anger at the barbarity of beating a child, and who summon the school teacher if he or she ventures to administer the mildest and best-deserved physical correction. No one abhors cruelty more than I do, but one cannot fail to see that the wisdom of Solomon has no less application to-day than it had so many, hundreds of years ago, when the wise king wrote, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." For want of a little wholesome correction the child is ruined body and soul for all eternity. People speak of spoiling children as if it were not a crime towards the child, but an amiable weakness; in fact, the word "spoil " has lost its meaning in this connection, and has acquired a sense wholly misleading. Did we substitute for it "injure," "ruin," "destroy," we should often be nearer the truth.
"Let the poor little things have a good time while they are young," people say; "their troubles will come quite soon enough." Certainly, by all means let us make childhood happy, the happiest
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time of life, if we can. But unlimited indulgence is not the way to make young lives happy in the present,
and it is a certain way to make after-life miserable. The petted, over-indulged child is not happy. Who are the whining, miserable, complaining little creatures ? They are precisely those whose every whim is indulged, and whose parents are afraid to deny any wish or interfere with any passing pleasure. This is not the way to make a child happy. The happy child is the one under firm and loving control : the one that has learnt to obey without question or hesitation ; that trusts the parent, and knows unconsciously that obedience is required for good reason ; and that when an indulgence is denied it is not for want of affection. Consequently, when its wish is not granted it does not whine and whimper or fly into a passion. It is learning the lesson of discipline and self-control which will be invaluable in after-life. Troubles will come soon enough, truly ; let the parent therefore brace and equip the child to meet them bravely.
Over-indulgence proceeds more often from laziness than from tenderness of heart. It is the same spirit that is exhibited by giving to beggars in the streets. It is much less trouble to give than to refuse. It is much less trouble to grant a child's wish, no matter how imprudent or unsuitable, than to deny it and to cope with consequent tears and rebellion. Perhaps ; but if the child had been properly brought
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up from the earliest years there need have been no tears or rebellion. It does not follow that corporal punishment is needed. When it is necessary it should be applied; but the average child never needs the rod if only there be firmness and consistency, with unfailing patience and kindness, in its treatment from its infancy.
Coming in contact, as we do in the Church Army, with so much of the weak and evil side of human nature, one cannot fail to be struck with the awful results of this mistaken kindness and indulgence. I should be afraid to say what proportion of the men who throng our Labour Homes can trace their downfall, in part at any rate, to parental weakness. In our prison work we meet with innumerable men and lads who need never have been in prison at all if there had been even a moderate degree of parental wisdom and control. I met, some time ago, with so apt an instance that I am tempted to refer to it at some length.
A father and mother in a good station of life had a son about twenty years of age. He was a young man not wanting in intelligence, and had, at any rate, the opportunity of a good education. He absolutely refused to do anything to earn his own living, and was to all appearance an incurable young savage. He habitually drank to excess, and was not even at the pains to conceal his habits from his parents. He used to come in at all hours of the
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night, rousing the household to supply him with food and drink, and his behaviour was such as to cause scandal and remonstrance on the part of neighbours. No decent woman was safe from insult at his hands. At the request of his parents he was taken on by the Church Army as a clerk, but after working for half an hour he threw down his pen and went away refusing to work any more. On more than one occasion he showed actual violence to his parents. They acknowledged that they never corrected him as a child, or denied him any indulgence, and that it was lack of discipline in early life which made this miserable young fellow what he is. Yet they did not appear to see that they were in fault, and responsible, not only for the existing misery, but for the young man's ruin, here and hereafter. With proper early training the lad would probably have turned out well, a credit to his parents, and have lived a happy and useful life. As matters stand, I see nothing in the future but an early and dishonoured grave; while the anguish of the parents is a punishment for their own wrongdoing. This is, no doubt, an extreme case, but it illustrates well what I wish to bring home; that want of proper firmness and control is no kindness, but a crime, and is very likely to lead to the child's utter ruin, here and hereafter.
I have recently met with an even more humiliating instance of parental ineptitude. A father living in
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the suburbs, and fond of his garden and of working in it, has given up the attempt to grow anything in it or to keep it in order, because he cannot prevent his son, an urchin of four or five years old, from trampling on the beds and picking the flowers.
This shrinking on the part of parents from the fulfilment of duty is part of the general softness of the time, and the tendency to regard immediate physical pain as the chief evil, to be avoided at all hazards, and physical ease and pleasure the most desirable objects. We see the same symptom in a hundred different ways—the avoidance of motherhood; the pursuit of luxury; the unwillingness of young men to serve as Territorials; and the crowds who flock to watch hired players play games. On the other side it may be said that there never was a time when pity for the sick, needy, and outcast was more abundant or more practical. We of the Church Army should be most ungrateful to deny it ; but compassion is one thing, and love of ease and pleasure and shrinking from pain and sacrifice are another.
To point out a disease is easy; to suggest a remedy is most difficult. It seems as though there must come a great revulsion of public feeling, causing a reversion to an older type of national character, before any great improvement can be expected. Now that may come, whether through some national catastrophe or not, it is impossible to
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foretell ; but one thing is certain, that if the national character is undermined, if it becomes soft and permanently averse from sacrifice, it is not Dreadnoughts that will save us, not any great armaments by land or sea or air. I am one who believes that the heart of the nation is yet sound, and that it is still possible to recover our ancient stability of character. But the danger is great, and if the p0sition is to be retrieved we must begin with the parents. The boys and girls of to-day are responsible for the future of the country and empire; and their parents are charged with the duty of so training them that they shall bear themselves bravely and as good citizens. The parents of to-day, therefore, hold the keys of the position. The issues of the future are in their hands. If they exercise their power with wisdom, there is no need to despair of the commonwealth; but if unwisely, our nation's might will pass away to hands more worthy to hold it.
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