CHAPTER XLVI

PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND MORAL PREPARATION FOR PARENTAGE

=The right of a child to receive good heredity.=--Every child has an absolute right to be well-born. To receive a good inheritance is worth infinitely more than to be born in a palace and inherit millions in money. The prenatal period of a child is more important than any other period in its earthly life. Parents are responsible to the child, to society and to God for what they bequeath to the child at birth. The child well trained till its birth is fully half trained. If the child inherits a good basis for a strong and healthy body, mind and morals, it can make a success in life. It is true that some parents prefer leaving the physical, mental and moral possibilities of their children to providence or “blind chance,” to practicing a little self-denial. But it is certainly the desire of all thoughtful parents to have their children well-born.

=Planning for the initial of a life.=--The initial of every child should be intelligently planned. Only parents who have their sexual nature under control, or those who can and will bring it under control, can do this. This can be done most easily by parents who in their youth were trained to see that the primary use of the sexual energy and function is to build up and maintain perfect manhood and womanhood through life and for procreative purposes in the married life, and not for unrestricted selfish pleasure.

=Why few children are well-born.=--Where married people have been falsely educated in the idea that marriage means unrestricted indulgence, and under this delusion have created unnatural demand, a horde of evils will follow. If this unfortunate class care only for a selfish pleasure, the children will follow each other closely and will receive a poor heredity. If they use preventive means to restrict the size of the family, the few children born into the homes will be far more unfortunately born. Excess in the marriage relation impoverishes the body, mind and soul and unfits for true parentage those who practice such excess. Every device used to prevent conception or to destroy unborn life will work untold injury to the parents, and the occasional, accidental and unwelcome child will receive a most unfortunate heredity. The mental and moral states, as well as the physical condition, of the parents, for months before and at the initial moment and during gestation must necessarily become a part of the child.

Whatever is received into our physical, mental and moral life becomes an essential part of ourselves and is transmissible to our offspring. Prospective parents should not at any time engage in anything that would be undesirable if reproduced in their children.

=Intelligent preparation.=--A knowledge of the laws of heredity will enable parents largely to overcome in their children any undesirable qualities possessed by themselves or their parents and to transmit to their children desirable qualities in a larger degree than that possessed by themselves.

In planning for a child, the parents should carefully study each other’s good and bad qualities, weak and strong points, their active and latent talents with a view to an intelligent cultivation of their good qualities and the restraining of the bad, strengthening their weak points and calling into activity every valuable latent capacity. In this way they may transmit only the best to the child. Both parents should ardently desire a child. Both should begin the preparation months before the initial of the new life and both should continue the preparations until the child is born. While the father’s direct hereditary influence upon the child ceases with the inception of life, his continued training will encourage and inspire his wife to continue her training until the birth of the child.

=Physical preparation.=--Both husband and wife should be in a perfectly healthy condition while planning for a child. The intelligent stock breeder appreciates this statement. He knows that the offspring will be defective if either of the parents is in a low state of vitality. Systematic treatment and feeding will be followed until the animal is brought to a normal condition before the initial of reproduction is allowed. The healthy or unhealthy condition of the blood determines the health of the body. The blood is the creative source of new life. Every new life is affected by the physical condition of its parents’ blood. It is a sin and a crime for parents knowingly to inflict physical weakness upon their children. Is it not strange that men will take every precaution to have their stock well-born and yet utterly ignore these essential precautions in relation to their children? There are some married people who have physical ailments that render them permanently unfit for parentage. Such should be wise enough to refrain from becoming parents.

=An invalid mother.=--When a mere boy I overheard a man say, “This is our twelfth child in a little over fourteen years and my wife has not been out of the bed since the birth of the first child.” I think there were two other children born into this home. Only one of these children lived to reach middle life. There is not an intelligent stock raiser in the world that would allow propagation among his swine under these conditions. This man was not brutal to his family. He was a kind husband and a loving father, but he was ignorant and thoughtless. He was controlled by the false teachings of “Physical necessity,” and “the wife’s body belongs to the husband.” We must recognize that the unborn have absolute and inalienable rights which we must not violate. No man has a right to engage in the creative act when he or his wife is in a physical, mental or moral condition that would, if transmitted, be undesirable in the possible offspring.

=Morbid conditions transmissible.=--Since incompetency, thievishness, drunkenness, tuberculosis, venereal poison, idiocy, insanity and criminal degeneracy may all be transmitted from parents to children, and to children’s children; young people before marriage should ascertain whether any of these conditions exist in the families of the prospective union. The father who spends his time lounging on street corners and telling questionable anecdotes cannot parent an industrious child. No thoughtful girl will marry an idle young man.

=The society mother.=--Mothers who lead in the dissipation of modern social life, such as balls, card parties, theaters, wine suppers, seldom have children that are well-born either physically, mentally or morally. Their children are strongly inclined to the same dissipations.

=The need of rest.=--Both parents should be well rested in body for several days before the initial of a new life takes place. If the vitality in their blood has been much exhausted by overwork, the creative cells will be lacking in vitality and the offspring will be weakened in its constitution.

Thoughtfully decide upon an ideal child in body, mind and character and try to embody this ideal in your daily life and in this way you will transmit these ideal conditions to your child.

“_Like begets like_” is an invariable law. At the conception of life an immortal being is started with a heritage of possibilities obtained from its parents. It is bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh, mind of their mind, soul of their soul. It cannot be otherwise than like the parents were at the time of the conception.

=Practical dietetics.=--The increase in population among the very poor is far greater than among the more prosperous classes. Their vitality is often very low, due to lack of proper nourishment. If the charity workers in our churches would look after this class of prospective mothers and see that they are supplied during gestation and lactation with wholesome and nutritious food, they would be engaged in the highest form of Christian service, and many of these mothers would give to their country better citizens than those which come from the homes of wealth. The time will come when the governments will declare for international peace and will appropriate a few hundred millions each year for the prospective mothers whose income is not sufficient to meet their needs, instead of appropriating their surplus funds to old soldiers. It is important that every mother be supplied during these periods with the best quality of nutritious food.

=Effects of narcotics.=--If the father is addicted to the use of tobacco or alcoholic drinks, he should abandon the habit, if for no other reason, because of its evil effects upon his offspring. One has only to study the children of a few men who are heavy drinkers or tobacco users to see the unmistakable effects of the narcotic habits of parents upon their children. In France there are annually twenty thousand more deaths than births. Eminent French doctors attribute part of this to the inveterate tobacco users. They claim that this class of men are often sterile, or their children die prematurely.

=Suppressing evil tendencies.=--“Like begets like.” Parents cannot transmit to their children what they themselves do not possess in a latent or active state. By awakening a slumbering talent and exercising it with zeal it may be reproduced in an intensified form in the child. By refraining from a bad habit, or ceasing to use an undesirable trait and by cultivating a mental opposition to it, the parents may be able to prevent, partly or wholly, its reappearance in the child. This law will apply to any case where tobacco or whisky habit, dishonesty, bad temper, idleness, licentiousness or any other bad trait has existed in the parents or their immediate ancestors.

=Effects of culture.=--Prospective parents should read the best literature, attend lecture courses, outline a course of study and follow it, and try to think beyond their usual meditations. Their affection for each other should be strong and pure. In relation to society, they should pay especial attention to honesty, charity, friendliness and love. Their æsthetic natures should be developed by the study and admiration of nature and art. Bible reading, singing and prayer, good works and spiritual devotion should form a part of their daily programme. It will do no good to practice these things in a half-hearted way. They must be made a part of our life if they are to influence favorably the future child.

=Primal purpose of marriage.=--The primary purpose of marriage is parentage. No greater early obligation rests upon married people than grows out of the function of parentage. No greater early honor, reward, or happiness comes to the married than when this God-honored duty is faithfully performed. No greater service can be rendered our children, society and God, than when we parent children whose bodies are sound and healthy, minds vigorous and bright, dispositions sweet, lives grand, noble and Christlike.