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Since first becoming a mother I have grown more and more dissatisfied with the quality of my own mothering and that of mothers around me. With our children we are conscientious but nervous we try hard but are rarely spontaneous. We have no solid inside reservoir of know-how and confidence.
The self-assurance of American mothers has been seriously undermined in recent years. More and more) women have been bombarded by the often conflicting opinions of child psychologists) pediatricians and early-learning educators. Women’s Lib has also complicated the mothering role. The Movement has convinced many women that to be nothing but a mother is to be a failure. Such a mother then cannot help but resent the supposed cause of her failure: her child) her children. The resentment that sets in only takes her further away from her mothering core.
But the problem goes back further. There is a serious lack of instilled mothering knowledge in this generation of mothers. Women are educating themselves well about pregnancy, birth and often breast-feeding, but that is as far as they go alone. Within hours after hospital delivery, new mothers realize that the living beings thrust into their arms are little-known quantities.
Panicked and disoriented, we are suddenly aware we were not taught the craft of mothering. Our mothers knew how to cook real oatmeal for the three-month-old, embroider a smock or make a dandelion chain for the toddler. They were taught the craft, but few passed it down. Though they knew the old ways they had lost the conviction that anything “old” mattered.
The World War II generation of mothers is the missing link with the past.
Even before their time, the chain was weakening, but mothers after the war fell prey in vast numbers to the Age of Technology. Commercial entrepreneurs assaulted them. Gerber, Walt Disney, Matte, and many other companies convinced those young mothers that to be modern and efficient, they should buy rather than make.
Sociological changes also worked against these women. Postwar families grew smaller and smaller; daughters had less and less chance to watch their mothers take care of younger sisters and brothers. Also, the nuclear family structure excluded grandmothers, great-aunts and others who used to contribute mothering information. Even women’s education got in the way. Mothers became obsessed with their daughters’ homework. Night after night, year after year, they insisted on neat geometry assignments rather than sitting with their daughters for an hour to sew.
For our children and ourselves, we have to find a way to keep the benefits of twentieth-century education, technology and change while also recapturing the older, slower sense of mothering calm. In this book I have tried to set down classic mother craft tools, most of them safely rooted in the pre-World War I era. The recipes and household suggestions call for few prepackaged aids-they begin at the beginning. The samples of old songs, rhymes, stories and art forms are widely varied but dependable, well-anchored and in general of better quality than much of what are being offered today. In the Playtime and Nature chapters, I emphasize things to invent and do with a child that cost little, that will make a parent’s time with a child more fruitful, and that will give the child a sense of creating on his own.
The last thing I hope for is to push mothers into doing more for their children. The old) basic ideas put forth here are meant to help a mother save her energy and yet have more of a sense of accomplishment at the end of a day. Even more important are the seeds each mother can add to this garden. We can reach back into our childhood and family past and unearth whatever crafting tools of our own give us each the most personal confidence and joy.
Little children in both England and America have always been taught the rudiments of education at home, as a matter of course. The mother, the aunt or the older sister usually was the teacher. Thus the child began his learning naturally: he scarcely knew he was being taught.
Once started, the child learns many things fastest by himself. “Teaching” can actually interrupt the momentum of personal thought.
A mother gives a clue. The child draws out the thread, tracing his way through the labyrinth by himself. When he finally arrives at the center, he is alone and triumphant.
