The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book Part 8

Later children may be s.p.a.ced to suit the desires of the parents, a recovery period of two years or more always being allowed the mother.

But will there be any later children? Dr. Ellsworth Huntington in his contribution to this volume has told us that most of us who are not s.h.i.+ftless and incompetent, on one hand, or wealthy and well-established, on the other, belong to a group in which the average number of children, including those who die young, is fewer than three. Dr.

Huntington rightly deplores this "rapid fall of the birthrate, especially among intelligent, far sighted, industrious, progressive people whose ideals of family life are high." The trouble with a family of fewer than three is that it cannot be counted on to project very far into the future those sound souls, that good biological inheritance, which the parents flatter themselves are so definitely worth preserving.

A family of two or even three children will not, on the average, produce two who, by becoming parents, may be thought of as replacing their father and mother. Thus a family of fewer than four children may be said to be dying out. This is a sorry state of things for those parents who, as I said above, like to think of themselves as affecting the destinies of the race by transmitting their best characteristics from generation to generation.

When intelligent people are forced to limit their families to one or two children by lack of money, it is a great pity. There is a great abundance of good things in America, but we do not seem to be able to get these things distributed in such a way as to do the most good. We are all working for a better world, but are we working hard enough? I sometimes think that we are not working so hard as we might, because our stake in that better scheme of things is not large enough. If we dared to have three or four children, with all the sacrifices implied, I wonder whether this fact would not sharpen our scent on the trail of the better America.

Lord Bacon said that those who have children have given hostages to fortune. But I am inclined to think that those who have made large and important bargains with chance are just those who will move heaven and earth to guard against mischance. One aspect of the better America, proposed by the American Eugenic Society, will perhaps be the adoption of a sliding-wage scale, characterized by a rise in pay upon marriage and with the arrival of each successive child.

That thoughtful people of our time, whether rich or not, will soon return to having families as large as our grandparents' is extremely unlikely. To bear ten or fifteen children would probably kill most modern women or so completely wear them out that the remnant of their lives would not be worth living. And families of this size would similarly exhaust even unusually large pocket-books, leaving most fathers insolvent. Though it is probably true, as economists say, that our land and its resources, if more equitably distributed and scientifically exploited, are capable of supporting many more millions of Americans than at present, there seems to be no good reason for stepping up the modern middle-cla.s.s family beyond four or five children.

The reader will notice that I have been going on the a.s.sumption that people can have children, and fine specimens at that, to order--when and as they please. This is to a large extent true. The key to the mystery is the doctor. Modern medical schools and modern law have entrusted into his hands not only the physical but the mental well-being of his patients. The tight interlocking of the body and spirit has been everywhere recognized, and the impossibility, in many illnesses, of healing one without treating the other. Positive well-being in the body, so important for the begetting of strong children, is practically inconceivable apart from positive happiness in the mind.

Thus it has become a prime tenet of eugenics that babies must not be conceived under conditions of excessive mental worry or strain. Children begotten in deprivation or the fear that they are going to lower the whole family's standard of living to a painful pinch are not going to have much chance, even while in the womb, to turn out fit and strong.

Judicious limitation of birth for reasons of health, the _whole_ health of the parents, in behalf of the best possible grade of offspring has therefore become a routine part of the physician's service to his patients. Every married couple should put themselves in the hands of a physician whom they respect and admire, making him an indispensable third partner to their family planning. This crucial role of the doctor in eugenics is one of the few really deeply encouraging signs of our times.

_The Woman Asks the Doctor_, by Dr. Emil Novak of Johns Hopkins, gives some idea of the role the modern physician may play in helping parents plan the vigorous citizenry of the future. When the married lovers are ready to have their children, it is naturally with the woman that the doctor is most concerned, correcting structural or functional deviations or mild organic disease before the pregnancy has advanced too far, seeing to it that the glandular mechanisms do their important work, that nutritional intake is sufficient, that digestion is kept successfully functioning, that metabolic processes are raised to more than ordinary efficiency, and that the body is kept free from all toxins and infections. After the birth of the child the doctor will not only look after the child but also see to it that the mother suffers no adverse after-effects and is restored to her maximal health and efficiency as soon as possible, ready to bear her next healthy baby when the time shall come.

Should a baby be conceived unexpectedly, the doctor is often the best person to help the parents handle the untoward situation. He can give the mother's physical condition that special attention which it will probably need if she has borne another child quite recently. If the objection to the child arises from economic or psychologic unpreparedness, there is no one better fitted, possibly, than the modern physician for changing negative fear to positive desire. By the force of his own enthusiasm for new life, by his vision of the modern family, by a skillful combination of his common sense and psychiatric training, and by his ability to arrange fees within the range of his worried clients, he can usually turn the unplanned conception into a happy accident.

It is often to the physician, too, that the father must look for practical guidance and encouragement in those unforeseeable cases when the mother perishes in connection with childbirth. It is he who is in the best position to prevent the father from unconsciously attaching blame to the unoffending child and harboring an undefined resentment which may adversely affect both lives. The doctor can help the bereaved father to cling to his dream of family life, can a.s.sist him in building a happy home for his motherless child or children, or can advise him on problems which may arise out of finding a new mother for them.

Another important function of the physician is to give aid to couples who have difficulty in begetting children. The question of sterility comes up frequently in our time, especially among cultivated and intellectual people. Persistent failure to conceive we term _absolute_ sterility; persistent failure to carry pregnancy to a successful end, we call _relative_ sterility. The latter is an obstetric problem and can usually be dealt with successfully. So can the former in about forty percent of the cases. We must remember the rule formulated by Matthews Duncan, that the marriage of persons between twenty and thirty cannot be regarded as sterile until at least four years of normal, happy s.e.xual intercourse have elapsed. I have known half a dozen instances in which a child was born after five, six, ten, and, in one case, fifteen years of complete failure to conceive. In these cases no special efforts were made by the couple to bring about conception.

Couples who wish to make special efforts should have complete physical examinations, both husband and wife, for though failure to conceive used to be attributed solely to the wife, we now know that in about thirty percent of cases it is the husband who is the cause. Many remediable physical conditions may be responsible for sterility, and the doctor, by correcting them, has a wonderful chance to contribute to human happiness. Many families feel the tragedy of not having children, and yet do not realize the need of finding out what the trouble is. They just drift along, a.s.suming that nothing can be done, and often they could be made fertile. This subject is ably discussed in _Human Sterility_ by Dr. Samuel R. Meaker of the Boston University School of Medicine.

When the doctor decides that there is practically no chance of a couple's having children of their own, their strong family urge may lead them to adopt some. They can find useful information in E. G.

Gallagher's _The Adopted Child_. It often happens that people get as much satisfaction out of adopted children as they could have got out of their own, finding cause for pride, inspiration, and comfort in their unfolding toward maturity.

The question of whether we should adopt children when infants or later--at some age under six--is worth considering. It may seem at first glance that only infants raised from the cradle can really take the place of children of our own. While this is partly true, there are drawbacks to be considered. To begin with, the supply of infants for adoption is not by any means large enough to meet the demand. Second, more than half the number of small babies available are illegitimate, and one can often learn little about the parentage. Though various child-placing agencies find it difficult to allocate those children who do not become available for adoption till the age of three or four or later, there are many things to be said in favor of taking an older child. More often they are legitimate and more facts about their parentage can be ascertained; also, it is possible to apply intelligence tests which will disclose whether their intelligence is normal or above.

Often those parents who want to adopt children tend to be intellectual, and will find greater happiness in--and give greater happiness to--a child who is of normal or superior intelligence.

You may object to the older child's early environment, thinking that it must have permanently injured even the fairest of capacities. But psychologists tell us that this is not really the case, and that the unhappy effects of poor environment during the first five years of a child's life can be removed, and the child reconditioned without too much trouble. Couples who are no longer young should, perhaps, adopt older children in order that they may stand in the most helpful age relation to them.

Children adopted as infants should always be told that they are not the flesh-and-bone children of the foster parents. This information, which is bound to come to them, will come with less shock from the parents themselves. At the age of five or six, when they first begin to be interested in where children come from, is a good time to tell them. It is agreed that the foster parents should use the word "chosen" rather than "adopted"--they chose their children out of all the thousands available, just as the foster father chose his wife, and the wife her husband.

This att.i.tude toward the question makes for a feeling of family solidarity and loyalty no less profound than that between other parents and children. Everything must be done to prevent feelings of inferiority from growing out of the adoptive relations.h.i.+p: the children must never be reminded of the fact of adoption, the parents must not expect more grat.i.tude from them than they would from offspring of their own, and they must never, never shout thanks to G.o.d, in a moment of anger, that the children are not really theirs. To do so is not to play the game.

After all, under most state laws, children may be adopted on trial for a year. If the children are kept after that date, the parents bind themselves in law and in morality to bring them up exactly as if they were their own. I keep using the plural throughout this paragraph because I a.s.sume, of course, that you will adopt at least two children if it becomes necessary for you to plan in this way your version of a splendid American family--strong, loving, and creative of an ever finer future.

_Dr. Hornell Hart_

CHAPTER EIGHT

_Detour Around Reno_

David and Ruth have been married four years. The first few months were glorious: they had to make minor adjustments, of course, but they had thrilling times together, and it was a wonderful thing to have someone you belonged to, someone so comforting and lovable. Yet lately there have been difficulties. David believes in saving money; Ruth thinks that you live only once and that you ought to spend your money--wisely, of course--for the nice things and the great experiences, especially since there is no telling when the bank will fail or when the bottom will drop out of the stock market and you will lose all you've invested. David likes to get away from the house at night--to see friends, and keep up with really good movies. Ruth prefers night clubs and gay parties. David thinks Ruth ought to be more careful about those white lies and those extremely decollete dresses; Ruth thinks David is rather a prude and mighty inconsiderate in the way he keeps picking on her. And then there is Junior. Ruth believes in loving one's children wholeheartedly and trusting that affection and understanding will bring them through all right in the long run; David thinks that right from the cradle youngsters need to build character and to learn that they have to obey.

Two days ago there was quite a quarrel, when Ruth ordered the new electric stove without consulting David--and on the same day he discovered that she had accidentally overdrawn the bank account! Neither one has spoken it, but the word DIVORCE has been saying itself behind those set lips and those coldly polite faces.

This falling out between David and Ruth represents one general type of marital conflict. A man and a woman differing somewhat in temperament--as any two people differ, more or less--find themselves being hurt by the other's ways of acting. Each allows a sense of antagonism to grow up. This makes them more ready to resent the next difference in opinion or purpose. Once started, the feeling of enmity can grow like a s...o...b..ll until neither one is willing to believe in the other's honesty, fairness, or decency. This road leads straight to Reno.

But there are many other ways of falling out in marriage. For example, there is the experience of Henry and Mary. They had a queer sort of engagement. They enjoyed each other's friends and had wonderful times playing tennis and going to shows together. But when it came to love-making, Henry always felt that he had made a clumsy fool of himself, and Mary always felt a turmoil of baffled emotions. Their honeymoon was a ghastly failure. Of course Mary knew that there was such a thing as s.e.x, but her parents had given her a feeling that the less people had to do with such things, the better. Her marriage night left her with a feeling of blind revulsion. She tried honestly to overcome it through the months that followed, but she had to force herself to respond to Henry's caresses, and he knew bitterly that she hated the relation which for him was a deep and urgent need.

In the years that followed they had four children and loved them dearly.

They still enjoyed going out together, entertaining their many friends, and taking part together in their church activities; but there was a grim disappointment back of it all, and every now and then it broke out in harsh words which both of them regretted.

s.e.xual frustration as experienced by Henry and Mary--or arising from various other causes--is a factor in many marital conflicts.

Our next example ill.u.s.trates another type of disharmony. Helen was really the one who brought about her marriage to William. She was a capable businesswoman, earning a good salary. He was the only son of a divorced woman. His mother loved him dearly; he was her great source of comfort in the loneliness and disappointment of her own wrecked marriage. Helen saw the fine qualities in him and felt that he was being shut away from normal life because his mother wrapped herself around him. When the mother was laid up in the hospital for three months, Helen set about a well-planned campaign. They were married shortly afterward.

His mother valiantly refrained from going with them on the honeymoon--and arranged for them to live across the hall from her in the same apartment building. William felt sincerely that he must not allow his mother to be lonely, and he could not understand why his wife showed irritation when the three of them were together four or five nights every week and throughout the summer vacation. But when he realized that it was not working out, they finally moved to the other side of town and limited the evenings with his mother to two or three a week.

When they first married, William insisted that his wife give up her work, and he also felt that he ought to manage the family finances--with his mother's constant advice. Helen longed for children, and she surrendered her business career in the hope that she might have a family. But no children came, and at last Helen found a new position, not so good as the one from which she had resigned.

She loves William pa.s.sionately, but she feels that his mother has spoiled their marriage. William loves Helen, but feels that she is unaccountably hard and unfriendly toward his mother, and he is distressed by her insistence upon earning her own income. The mother wants both to be happy and is willing to retire into the background, but she believes that Helen does not really appreciate William; as a mother she does not propose to see her son's life ruined by any woman.

William's mother fixation is a somewhat extreme example of a fairly frequent source of conflict. In some cases the bride suffers from father fixation, and her husband suffers accordingly.

Our fourth case ill.u.s.trates another widespread type of marriage problem.

Sam had had a gay and jolly life before he married. Mabel felt keen pride when she finally captured him from the other girls. He really meant to settle down and be loyal to her when they married. Their pa.s.sion for each other was absorbing and wonderful for a while. Twins were born promptly, and a year later came another child. The babies kept Mabel tied down rather closely to the home. Sam often found her with wildly straying hair and a mussed dress when he came home, and her temper was apt to be on wire edge after nights of being up with the children. Sam always seemed to be sound asleep when the children needed attention.

Mabel became careless about the cooking: the food was often burned, cold, lumpy, and poorly seasoned. She noticed that Sam always brightened up when a pretty girl was near.

He used to go out often "to play cards with the boys," and Mabel twice found lipstick on his handkerchief.

A nice medical student who rooms next door has now taken to dropping in to talk to Mabel. She wonders--since Sam is so free and easy--whether she might not also pick up a little thrill on the side. And the neighbors have recently overheard some violent arguments between Sam and Mabel.

Four typical cases of unhappy marriage have been sketched: a man and woman who are allowing differences of opinion to grow into intense antagonism, a couple suffering from miscarriage of their s.e.x life, a vigorous woman married childlessly to a mother-absorbed man, and an overworked and rather careless mother married to a man who is always seeking fresh romance. By way of contrast let us look at a quite different type of marriage.

Charles and Anna have been married twenty years. Loving each other has been the great adventure of their lives--that and having their three children. They always regarded marriage as a partners.h.i.+p--fifty-fifty, they used to say. There have been times of stress, but they have always been able to talk their problems out together. There have even been outbursts now and then when they have got behind on their sleep, and when each of them has been trying so hard to hold down the lid that it has finally blown off. But always these storms have cleared the air, and afterward they have come closer to each other than before. Marriage, for them both, is the great central core of life--focus of love, faith, and joy.

In spite of all that appears in the tabloid newspapers, the Charles-and-Anna type of marriage is far more typical than the experiences of the other four couples whose stories have just been sketched. In almost every marriage there are rich values to be preserved and possibilities of deeper and fuller joy than have ever been achieved.

Our purpose in this article is to point out some of the practical steps which can be taken by couples who do have fallings out, to eliminate friction, to keep love alive, and to discover the deeper and wider happiness which might be theirs.

_Five Ways To Go_

No matter what crisis one confronts in life, there are the following five possible ways of reacting:

_1. One may acquiesce ign.o.bly._ That means to give in weakly, to "take it lying down," as the boys say. If one is disappointed in one's wife or one's husband, if one's s.e.x life in marriage is a failure, if one's in-laws intrude disastrously, if one's mate follows loves outside of marriage, or if any other catastrophe overtakes one's home, one can give way to hopeless lamentation and self-pity: "There's nothing I can do about it. It's just a rotten world. n.o.body ever gives me a decent chance. I suppose I've got to live along and pretend I don't care. Poor me!"

_2. One may evade cravenly._ That means to run away like a coward. Many divorces are simply a blind and frantic attempt to escape from suffering. Some divorces, of course, are the best possible solution of a bad situation. But quite often the persons seeking the divorce are really trying to run away from themselves. They have never learned how to live in friendly happiness with other people. If they marry again, they will promptly find themselves in new suffering because they have never solved the basic problems of their own personalities. Sometimes the cowardly evasion is mental instead of physical. The husband or wife retires into a private world and puts up an icy barrier against the partner. In any case this type of solution is a blind attempt to run away from the problem instead of facing it bravely, trying to understand it, and seeking the wisest and best solution possible.

_3. One may attack vindictively._ Most husbands and wives who are skidding toward divorce have convinced themselves that their marriage partners are villains. "This person I married is to blame. He is selfish, heartless, cruel, disloyal, lazy, and nasty. He has hurt me terribly, but I'll get even. I'm going to make him suffer the way he's made me suffer. I'll show him that he can't do that to me!"