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Babies, Etc.
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (June 22, 1912) : 21
Purdue copy/scan (hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
Indiana U copy/scan (via google books) : link
 

      The invulnerability with which Nature has endowed us is so uneven in its protective powers! Our bodies are jeopardized by contact with a tiny leaden pellet, a thing innocent and almost futile in appearance. Our maturity remains unscathed by hours spent in the society of an infant, a thing terrifying in its capacity for ruin. Society has accomplished a wonderful feat in attaining effeteness with babies in its midst. Its escape from the numbed imbecility which contact with a baby engenders can be due to nothing but an early recognition of the danger. To rescue any part of mankind it was necessary to throw over a large portion. The portion thrown over was women. Man was so relieved to find himself in a position where sanity and calm were possible that he built up an unscalable wall of morals, poetry, custom, and conversation, and, thus safely ensconced, proceeded to mature, work, think, and take on dignity.
      The women left in the society of babies did not hold out a moment. They fell into the trap the insidious little creatures set and let off countless rockets of astonished devotion. They threw everything they had to the winds. They substituted queer noises, which shortly made them hoarse, for thoughtful conversation. There was no use in saying what they wanted to say, so they said what they could, and when the babies were too young for that they made no attempt to bring the babies up to their level, but flung themselves down to that of their charges. They pranced on all-fours with hair distraught, because that is one of the best ways of maintaining one’s popularity with a baby when he begins to feel bored. The ennui of a grown-up is a thing of little moment. The ennui of a baby is prostrating and appalling. Sometimes one’s lowest human level is not sufficient to divert babies, so the women pretended they were strange beasts, and, when that grew stale, they became pieces of furniture and the babies walked over them and pounded their patient forms.
      When the point had been reached where everything had been done twenty times over, and each absurdity seemed flatter than the next, it occurred to some of the women that their danger was acute... they looked at themselves with their adult potentialities, and, realizing that it was either they or the babies, they fled precipitately while there was still something left of them to fly. it occurred to some of the women that their danger was acute. They felt every keen thrill in their make-up dissolving with terrifying rapidity. They looked at the babies, just round, rumpled little pink bundles; they looked at themselves with their adult potentialities, and, realizing that it was either they or the babies, they fled precipitately while there was still something left of them to fly. They were abashed, they were garrulous; they had to be the latter to cover up their flight. They took up careers and did other things that were enjoyable, but left them a little shamefaced, because it seemed disloyal when the other women were still frantically shaking rattles and measuring out ounces of peptonized food.
      Then it occurred to them that it was not fair that so large a proportion of the world should be sacrificed in this way. They saw that it was a promising portion, that it developed qualities even in the maelstrom of the nursery, and they marveled and grew angered and told the women in the nurseries to come out and be mature beings. This started endless arguments. The more frightened of the men said that it was against nature for the women to leave the nurseries and that they could not and must not. Other men asked how their kind was to be born if the women did not consent to grow up. Others saw clearly the justice of the woman’s plea that she had qualities which, if she stayed too much in the nursery, disappeared, and these men were inclined to help her to come out, but with the rueful regret that she had taken on characteristics in the nursery which they found charming and that they feared to see put in jeopardy. Other men said that all the great work of the world had been done by celibates and always would be done by celibates; that one-half of the world had to bear human beings and the other half be them, and that there must be no shirking on the part of the first half. If the differentiation seemed hard there were drawbacks on both sides, and if the men had exhilaration the women had countless comfortable perquisites, and it was very hysterical to discuss the matter further.
      Some people admitted that domesticity was taming for both sexes, but confessed that they found it agreeable; others — these of the tamer kind — were shocked to their souls at such a suggestion. The women who had given up a hundred qualities and given them up so completely that they never suspected that they had once existed in them and still existed in others quivered to the core at the approach of change or criticism. The people who made the greatest noise in the argument that arose because of the menace of the babies were those who were outraged by the mention of the subject. The women who had given up a hundred qualities and given them up so completely that they never suspected that they had once existed in them and still existed in others quivered to the core at the approach of change or criticism. They would have none of their perquisites taken away, though they did not call them by that name. They exhibited an agility in evasiveness and sophistry that was surprising. They consented to admit that their lot was hard, but they showed at the same time ingrained ability to get entire compensation for their martyrdom.
      The women who had fled from the babies were seriously put about. They saw the logic on all sides, which is to say they saw the complication of the subject. They saw that it touched a multitude of apparently irrelevant points. That it was always a question of one set of people taking care of those funny little bundles, babies, of their being compensated for it, of their being overcompensated and not doing it, of being penalized for wanting to do it, of being brought up to do it and to do nothing else, and of then not being given a chance to do it. Of being blamed for being a baby when the influence of generations of mothers with cooing inconsequences made anything else but resemblance a miracle, and, lastly, of being condemned for having by a fluke inherited one’s father’s amused horror at finding himself responsible for babies.
      The predicament seemed inherent in the make-up of the race. Two solutions only were apparent, and they both had all the drawbacks that solutions invariably contain. The first was that, if women were to bear, tend, and spend their time with babies, arrangements must be made that they should do it under the best conditions for the babies, and consequently the pleasantest conditions for themselves. They must not be taught so much as the alphabet. They must never talk to men, or, rather, men must never talk to them as to their equals. They must be kept happy and healthy and segregated. This solution was simple and logical and comfortable and no one could be blamed for desiring it. If the women proved undesirable companions for growing boys the sons could be taken away at an early age or taught that women were not to be taken seriously. This solution has precedence back of it. If society loses half her inheritance in each generation by negating the mother that is the price society pays for her penchant for simple solutions. If society loses half her inheritance in each generation by negating the mother that is the price society pays for her penchant for simple solutions. If she long ago made such a solution impossible, that is her own blunder, for which she must not blame the women.
      The second solution was to accept the problem as difficult and to be appalled according to one’s place in it; to admit the ruinous influence of babies as well as their inevitableness and their imperativeness. To recognize that there have always been some women who, instead of doing less than men, did more, for they took on and maintained with no loss a double burden. To realize that women now know they must do twice as much as men and that they intend to do it. And, if possible, to assist in what is a big task undertaken bravely, knowing that one’s payment will come in society’s gain.
 

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