Lena K. Sadler

“ Every little girl and boy baby that comes into the world, has stored within its body, in a wonderfully organized capsule, a part of the ancestral stream of life that unceasingly has flowed down through the centuries from father to son and from mother to daughter. ”

“ If a sheltered corner of the porch is within the reach of the mother, we can hardly think of a time when the baby cannot be taken out. It may rain, the wind may blow, it may snow or even hail, but baby lies in his snug little bed with a hot water bottle or a warmed soapstone at his feet. As long as the finger tips are warm, we may know he is warm all over, and a long nap is thus enjoyed in the cool fresh air. ”

“ It has been my experience, as a mother with a profession, and that of many others of my acquaintances, that an art student or a music student makes a splendid caretaker. There are hundreds and hundreds of genteel women, with winning manners and beautiful dispositions, who may be obtained to sew on the buttons, wash the faces, and change the clothes of our darlings while we are carrying forward in the world the great work for which we have fitted ourselves during the long struggles of our teens and early twenties. ”

“ From two to six years of age, when the imagination is most plastic and vivid, when the child's imitative instinct is so unconsciously automatic, is the most effective and opportune time to initiate good habits and lay the foundations for the later development of a strong and noble character. "Baby's skies are Mamma's eyes" is just as true as it is poetical. While a tired and worn-out mother, exhausted by a multitude of harrassing household cares, may be pardoned for her occasional irritability, nevertheless the little one unconsciously partakes of her spirit. ”

“ It lies in the choice of every expectant mother to journey through the months of pregnancy with dissatisfaction and resentment or with joy and serenity. "The child will be born and laid in your arms to be fed, cared for, and reared, whether you weep or smile through the months of waiting." ”

“ A baby pen, lifted up from the floor, well protected at the sides, and covered with mosquito bar—if exposed to flies or mosquitoes—affords splendid opportunity for exercise. Here the little fellow may lay on a well-padded mattress and kick, move his arms, and otherwise roll about to his own satisfaction. It should not be in the direct sunshine, but rather in a protected, somewhat shady place, yet where the air is pure and fresh.
Much exercise is obtained from the daily cry. Here, the arms, legs, hands and feet, as well as the body, are all exercised until the baby is pink. ”

“ No other factor enters so largely into the sure "spoiled" harvest as picking a new baby up every time he cries. Often in the early days some indulgent parent will say, "Oh, don't turn out the light, something might happen to the dear little thing"—and old Mother Nature sees to it that a constant repetition of "leaving the light on" brings its sure harvest of "he just won't go to sleep without the light." And then, "just once" he had the pacifier—perhaps to prevent his crying disturbing some sick member of the family—and so we go on and on. ”

“ You can take a child who has gotten up wrong in the morning, whose nerves are running away with him, who is irritable, crying at everything that happens, who even rejects the food prepared for him, and who, when spoken to and commanded to stop crying, yells all the louder—I say you can take such a little one back to its crib, place it in the bed and smilingly walk out of the room. ”

“ Baby talk is very cunning, and often the adult members of the family pick it up and keep it up for years, and only when they are exposed in public, as one mother was on a suburban platform by her four-year-old lad shouting, "Mamma, too-too tain tumin, too-too tain tumin," do they sense their responsibility and realize how difficult it is to form new habits. ”

“ Maternal nursing lays the foundation for sturdy manhood and womanhood.
Out of every one hundred bottle-fed babies, an average of thirty die during the first year, while of the breast-fed babies, only about seven out of every one hundred die the first year. At the same time, nursing the babe delivers the mother from all the work and anxiety connected with the preparation of the artificial food, the dangers and risks of unclean milk, and the ever-present fear of disease attendant upon this unnatural feeding. The mother who nurses her child can look forward to a year of joy and happiness ”

“ From earliest girlhood, women have loved their dolls, and one of the greatest joys connected with the adored experience was the make-believe bath and the dressing of the make-believe baby; so now, when we are the happy possessors of real live dolls, we should go about the task with the same lightheartedness of a score of years ago when we hugged, kissed, bathed, and dressed our dolls. ”

“ Infections accompany crowds, and baby is far better off at home, in the quiet of his natural surroundings, than he is in the dust, closeness, and bustle of illy ventilated cars, streets, shops, movies, or even at church. Many an infant has been sacrificed by a train journey to "show him off" to the fond grandparents; scores of babies acquire whooping cough at the movies; and many a baby has nearly lost his life by catching measles, scarlet fever, or diphtheria at church ”

“ And so we are told that the spectacle of the young infant suspending its weight while holding on to some object, and the early instincts so commonly shown to climb ladders, trees, or anything else available, are but racial mementos of our ancestral forest life. The hide and seek games, the desires to convert a blanket into a tent, the instinct for "shanties"—which all boys universally manifest—we are told that these forms of play are but the echo of remote ages when our ancestors sojourned in caves, lived in tents, or dwelt in the mountain fastness. ”

“ Sensitiveness is nothing more or less than a refined form of selfishness, while lack of self-control is merely the combined end-product of heredity and childhood spoiling. I am a great believer in, and practitioner of, modern methods of psychological child culture, but let me say to the fond parent who has a nervous child, when you have failed to teach the child self-control by suggestive methods, do not hesitate to punish, for of all cases it is doubly true of the nervous child that if you "spare the rod" you are sure to "spoil the child." ”

“ In fact, during very early infancy, pneumonia heads the list of infant deaths, only to be displaced a few months later by that most dreaded summer disease—diarrhea.
Little tiny babies are so helpless—they are so dependent upon their seniors for life itself—that our responsibility is indeed great. We should put forth our best endeavor to avoid and prevent common colds. Among all the common maladies that afflict the human race "colds" probably head the list; and, in the case of babies and the younger children, the common colds often go on into coughs, croup, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. ”

“ There used to be many dairymen like the old farmer who, when interrogated by the health commissioner concerning the cleanliness of his milk, laughed as he reached down into the bottom of a pail of yellow milk and grabbing up a handful of manure and straw, said: "That's what makes the youngsters grow." But it does not make them grow; it often causes them to die, and even if they do live, they live in spite of such contaminated food, for the germ which is always found in the colon of the cow (coli communis) , probably kills more babies every year than any other single thing. ”

“ Men and women are outdoor animals. They were made to live in a garden, not a house. Remember that each person requires one cubic foot of fresh air every second. Don't allow the temperature of living-rooms, during the winter season, to go above sixty-eight degrees. If your home has no system of ventilation, open wide the windows and doors several times a day and enjoy the blessings of a thorough-going flushing with fresh air.
Oxygen is the vital fire of life. Our food, however well digested and assimilated, is just as useless to the body without oxygen, as coal is to the furnace without air. ”

“ The unfortunate thing about it all is that the one who has indulged and spoiled the baby usually does not possess the requisite nerve, grit, and will power to carry out the necessary program for baby's cure. And the pity of it all is that overindulgence in babyhood so often means wrecked nerves and shattered happiness in later life. So, fond, indulgent parents, do your offspring the very great kindness to fight it out with them while they are young, even if it takes all summer, and thus spare them neurasthenia, hysteria, and a host of other evils in later life. ”

“ Don't let a thought of the fear of insanity, of haunted houses, of drafts, of this and of that enter into your home. Instead, live in the glorious sunshine of strong, healthy, faith-thought, and a supreme happiness will come into your life, and you will give a legacy to your children for which they will "rise up and call you blessed." ”

“ I believe that many mothers make the sad mistake of showing the child that they are shocked by trivial sayings and trifling experiences of their little people. If we could only get it into our heads for once and for all that our children are born into this world veritable little thieves and falsifiers, as well as adventurers and explorers, we would then cease being so shocked and outraged by their frank statements of what they have heard or have done. ”

“ Such a child sometimes keeps its mother living in constant terror because, when its will is crossed in any particular, it will scream and hold its breath until it turns black in the face and sometimes actually goes into a convulsion. ”

“ Most interesting is the study of the food as it passes through the processes of digestion, absorption, assimilation, and oxidation—all definite and important parts of the great cycle through which everything we eat passes on its way from the table to the tissues. Elimination is the last step in nutrition, and is the process by which the body rids itself of the broken down cells and other poisonous and useless wastes. These various phases of bodily nutrition may be expressed in a single term—metabolism. ”

“ For a caretaker, the professional or business woman should not select an ignorant servant girl; that would be a great mistake—a crime—a violation of the law that should govern the training of these little people who have come to us to be reared and cared for and fitted to occupy their place among the world's workers. As a rule, one soul does not possess the qualifications for scrubbing and laundry work and also the firm but gentle ministering qualifications necessary for a successful caretaker. ”

“ At the same time of life that Mother Nature fully develops the sex instincts—at adolescence—she also awakens the religious emotions; the one being so necessary for the proper and adequate control of the other. Let parents take a cue from old Mother Nature, and at the same time the sex relations of animals are freely discussed with the growing child, let the mother or father wisely call attention to the fact that but very few of the animals live family lives as do human beings. ”

“ Nobody is particularly attracted to the spoiled baby. After the over-indulgent parent and caretaker have completed their thoughtless work, they themselves are ashamed of it and not infrequently begin to criticise the product of their own making—the formation of these unpleasant bad habits. More than anything else, the spoiled child needs a new environment, new parents, and a new life. ”