Mothers Through the Generations

I know each generation believes that they can improve on past generations parenting....just go to your library and read the titles of shelves and shelves of how-to-books on parenting.   A recent study came out debunking past methods of discipline, possible leaving many mothers with guilt trips for having followed past generations, while opening the door to arrogance in this new generation of mothers.  I shake my own head at how the advice has changed from my first born 27 years ago to my last baby 5 years ago.  


No matter what the new promoted training method maybe  in each generation the heart of all mothers remain the same.  Just ease drop on public conversations...very easy now days when everyone is talking on their cell phone in public and you hear the familiar.  No matter the nationality, color of the skin or economic background a mother's conversations with her children are familiar to us all. The common bond of a mother's love links all generations.

Today I want to share a piece written in 1921...I have saved the author to the end as a surprise.

Happy Mother's Day

Are You Your Children's Confidant?

September 1921

     A letter from my mother, who is seventy-six years old, lies on my desk beside a letter from my daughter far away in Europe.  Reading the message from my mother, I am a child again and longing unutterable fills my heart for Mother's counsel, for the safe haven of her protection and the relief from responsibilities which trusting in her judgment always gave me.

     But when I turn to the letter written by my daughter, who will always be a little girl to me no matter how old she grows, then I understand and appreciate my mother's position and her feelings toward me.

    Many of us have the blessed privilege of being at the same time mother and child, able to let the one interpret the other to us until our understanding of both is full and rich.  What is there in the attitude of your children toward yourself that you wish were different?  Search your heart and learn if your ways toward your own mother could be improved.

     In the light of experience and the test of the years, can you see how your mother might have been more to you, could have guided you better?  Then be sure you are making the most of your privileges with the children who are looking to you for love and guidance.  For there is, after all, no great difference between generations; the problems of today and tomorrow must be met in much the same way as those of yesterday.

     During the years since my mother was a girl to the time when my daughter was a woman, there have been many slight, external changes in the fashions and ways of living, some change in the thoughts of the world, and much more freedom in expressing those thoughts.  But the love of mother and child is the same, with the responsibility of obedience and respect on the other.

     The most universal sentiment in the world is that of mother-love.  From the highest to the lowest in the scale of humanity, and all through the animal kingdom, it is the strongest force in creation, the conserver of life, the safeguard of evolution.  It holds within its sheltering care the fulfillment of the purpose of creation itself.  In all ages, in all countries it is the same - a boundless, all-enveloping love; if necessary, a sacrifice of self for the offspring.

     Think of the number of children in the world, each the joy of some mother's heart, each a link connecting one generation with another, each a hope for the future....

    It stuns the mind to contemplate their number and their possibilities, for these are the coming rulers of the world: the makers of destiny, not only for their own generation but for the generations to come.  And they are being trained for their part in the procession of time by the women of today.  Surely, "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

Laura Ingalls Wilder - The Rediscovered Writings

She started writing for journals at the age of 45 and started her "Little House in the Prairie" series at age 65.