CHAPTER VI FATHER AND SON ROPERLY enough, the responsibility for health and development of young children rests upon the mother, and in most families this care remains with her till the children are able to look out for themselves. However, upon the father devolves more responsibility than the mere providing for the daily need of his children. Especially is it true that the boys of a family need the personal influence of the father fully as much as that of the mother. However patient, wise and devoted a mother may be, there comes a time in every boy's life when he ought to be under the influence and subject to the control of a man. Every boy looks to men for his models and for a time follows them blindly, in spite of the most careful training a mother can give. Curiously enough it is often to a man other than his father that the boy looks for advice and direction. It is some other man who influences his thought and through his thought his actions and the development of his character. Even when the relations between father and son are of the closest the boy begins to look around him and often, for no other reason than the novelty of the influence, he falls under the tutelage of another to whom he gives a confidence that his father could never secure. As they enter the period of adolescence, boys will often talk on many subjects with strangers with a freedom that parents, especially fathers, can never hope to see equalled unless the most perfect confidence has existed from the earliest childhood. Those who have taught for many years and who have had growing boys in their charge know how true this fact is and try to make it of service by seeing that someone of strong character shall be at hand for the boys to lean upon. They are impressionable, these men in embryo, and will go to such lengths for persons they happen to admire and who have secured their confidence that those who know, tremble when they find evil or trifling influences gathering about their charges. Unfortunately in too many cases the parents fail to realize the importance of this change of relationship and allow children to drift without any effort to stem the tide that is bearing their progeny away. Fathers are particularly blind. One would think that they would remember how it was with themselves in their youth and be guided accordingly. But as a matter of fact a large majority of the fathers of the land have forgotten the perils of their own boyhoods; they look upon their own sons as proof against the temptations they weathered, or as being exempt because of their better position in life. If these same fathers would only consider that the temptations come from within and are inseparable from our race and from the age of the children they would regard with the greatest concern every influence that is brought to bear upon their rapidly developing boys. This is no light matter we are discussing and is one that ought to be considered seriously by every father. Every teacher, every psychologist knows that the time comes when a man must lead the changing youth. Who shall do it? Obviously the father. No man can put aside his responsibilities in this matter nor can he delegate it to the mother. She may be the one big factor in the development of her boy's character and yet there is one time when all her carefully laid plans may go awry, when for a little while her restraining influence is powerless to save. No father can, in fairness to the children he has brought into the world, say that when he has made the home and furnished it, when he has fed and clothed his wife and children he has done all that he ought to do. It matters not how difficult a task it has been to find the money to support his family, nor how hard he has been obliged to work to get the daily bread; it matters not how tired or how much in need of recreation he may be when he returns to his home at the close of the day; he finds his responsibility always facing him. Do not misunderstand the question, nor the purpose of these lines. This is in no sense a criticism nor is it a bit of preaching at the hard-working fathers upon whom rest the hopes of the race. Every true father is willing to give his life if necessary for his offspring and there is no greater devotion in the world than that of father to son. But the fact remains that many a busy man has been so overburdened with the cares of his everyday life that he has had no time to make himself familiar with even the smallest of his duties to his family. Suddenly he becomes conscious that his son is growing away from him, that the little things that have bound them together have no longer the strength to hold, that they are drifting apart. Perhaps the father never has been on intimate terms with his son and has never really known what his child was thinking about or what his ideas and ideals really were. When this consciousness comes to the father, when he learns that he is no longer the one big figure on his son's horizon and that his words have ceased to be accepted as final on every question, he is startled and seeks strenuously to regain his position. Difficult will it be. To regain what has been lost is always difficult; more difficult is it to displace an influence that is already established. How many, many times there comes to the earnest teachers the anxious parent with the oft-repeated statements and questions. "My boy has grown away from me. I don't know him any more. What I say no longer has any influence with him. I don't know what to do. How can you help me? He thinks more of what you say than of what I say and would follow you even if I objected. What can I do? What advice can you give?" In many instances it is too late and never again can the father recover the influence he has lost. On the other hand, it is possible in most cases for the father to reinstate himself if he proceeds in the right way. That way is never through command or restraint or discipline. By only one process can he succeed, and that is by placing himself in the position of the boy, learning the boy's tastes and interests and in joining with the boy in the things the latter likes. If there has never been much community of thought between the two, the parent may say in substance or show by his acts that he has rather neglected the youth because he was too young to be in sympathy with a man's work and because it was better for the mother to have the care of her son during his boyhood; but that now he is old enough to begin to think a man's thoughts and to take an interest in a man's occupations. Sometimes if this is followed by a real hearty confidence, if the father takes the boy with him on his business trips, shows him how the money for the family is made and what are the joys and compensations of a busy career, the boy's confidence is won, his interest aroused and a frank comradeship established, new bonds are created and the father finds a delightful companion, the boy an honored friend and a worthy leader. Such fathers have said again and again, "I have found a new and trustworthy friend, a helper whose enthusiasm and good sense is worth more to me than anything I have had in years; and it is my boy who is doing it." Unfortunately, most men fail to realize the power of a boy's mind, the helpfulness of his companionship. His outlook on life is so fresh and true, his ambition so strong and his |