How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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more vague “ outer world ” of postmen, errand boys, doctors, “ uncles,” barbers, taxi drivers, or tram con¬ ductors. The situation of the young child is that of an alien in a hostile country. * Most parents are vaguely aware that the little alien must be domesticated and initiated, and their emotional attitude toward the child determines very largely the nature and quality of his subsequent social adjustment. No child escapes this early process of informal education which is usually far more significant as a determinant of his future patterns than the formal education to which he is exposed in later years. The chief burden of the child’s early initiation into the charmed circle of human society usually falls on his mother. A mother's first duty to her child is to vouchsafe to the child the fundamental human experience of one entirely trustworthy human being. Without this experience the child remains for ever a stranger in an enemy country. The child need not experience this bond with an entirely trustworthy fellow human being with his blood mother—any human being can play this role, but in the great majority of cases it devolves upon his own blood mother. When the mother has accomplished her first spiritual function, the initiation of the child into the fellowship of human beings, her second function begins. A mother s second function consists in training the child to develop his own powers independently, that he may transfer the human bond to other members of society—his father, his brothers and sisters, nurses, servants, relatives, playmates, and teachers. She must make him independent and courageous. The father s r6le is just as important as the mother’s, tor it is the father s function to reconcile the child to adults of the other sex, and furthermore to give the child a feeling or confidence in attacking the problem of occupation, because in the prevailing system of civilization, the father is usually the breadwinner. The rdles of father and mother may be interchanged, or they may be assumed by other adults in the child’s environment, but unless a child is first reconciled to one trustworthy human being, then trained