The Foundations of Personality [133]
parents who believe that to play cards or go to theater is the way of Satan find their children leaving home to do these very things. Everywhere mothers wonder why daughters like short skirts, powder and perhaps rouge, when they were brought up on the corset, crinoline and the bustle; and they rebel against the indictment passed out broadcast by their children. "You are old-fashioned; this is the year 1921." When children grow up, their wills clash with their parents', even in the sweetest, and most loving of homes. Behind many a girl's anxiety to marry is the desire for the unobstructed exercise of her will. Parents too often seek in their children a continuation of their own peculiarities, their own characters and ideals, forgetting that the continuity of the generations is true only in a biological sense, but in no other way. And children grown to strength, power and intelligence think that each person must seek his experiences himself and forget that true wisdom lies in what is accepted by all the generations. Just as we have the types of husbands and the types of wives, so we judge men and women by the wisdom, dignity and faithfulness of their parenthood; so we judge them by the kind of children they are to their parents. In this last we have a point in character of great importance and one upon which the followers of Freud have laid much--over-much--stress. The effect of too affectionate a home training, too assertive parenthood, is to dwarf the individuality of the child and make him a sort of parasite, out of contact with his contemporaries, seclusive and odd. There is a certain brand of goody-goody boy, brought up tied to his mother's apron strings, who has lost the essential capacities of mixing with varied types of boys and girls, who is sensitive, shy and retiring, or who is naively boorish and unschooled in tact. According to some psychiatrists this kind of training breeds the mental disease known as Dementia Praecox, but I seriously doubt it. One often finds that the goody-goody boy of fifteen becomes the college fullback at twenty,--that is, once thrown on the world, the really normal get back their birthright of character. I think it likely that now and then a feeling of inferiority is bred in this way, a feeling that may cling and change the current of a boy's life. The real danger of too close a family life, in whatever way it manifests itself, is that it cuts into real social life, narrows the field of influences and sympathies, breeds a type of personality of perhaps good morals but of poor humanity. The home must never lose its contact with the world; it should never be regarded as the real world for which a man works. It is a place to rest in, to eat in, to work in; in it is the spirit of family life, redolent of affection, mutual aid and self-sacrifice; but more than these, it is the nodal point of affections, concerns and activity which radiate from it to the rest of the world.
CHAPTER XV. PLAY, RECREATION, HUMOR AND PLEASURE SEEKING One of the great difficulties in thought is that often the same word expresses quite different concepts. Some superficial resemblance has taken possession of the mind and expressed itself in a unifying word, disregarding the fundamental differences. Take the word "play." The play of childhood is indeed a pleasurable activity to the child, but it is really his form of grappling with life, a serious pursuit of knowledge and a form of preparation for his adult activities. It is not a way of relaxation; on the contrary, in play he organizes his activities, shuffles and reshuffles his ideas and experiences, looking for the new combinations we call "imaginations." The kitten in its play prepares to catch its prey later on; and the child digging in a ditch and making believe "this is a house" and "this is a river" is a symbol of Man the mighty changing the face of Nature. The running and catching games like "Tag" and "I spy," "Hide and go seek," "Rellevo" are really war games, with training in endurance, agility, cool-headedness, cooperation and rivalry as their goals. Only
CHAPTER XV. PLAY, RECREATION, HUMOR AND PLEASURE SEEKING One of the great difficulties in thought is that often the same word expresses quite different concepts. Some superficial resemblance has taken possession of the mind and expressed itself in a unifying word, disregarding the fundamental differences. Take the word "play." The play of childhood is indeed a pleasurable activity to the child, but it is really his form of grappling with life, a serious pursuit of knowledge and a form of preparation for his adult activities. It is not a way of relaxation; on the contrary, in play he organizes his activities, shuffles and reshuffles his ideas and experiences, looking for the new combinations we call "imaginations." The kitten in its play prepares to catch its prey later on; and the child digging in a ditch and making believe "this is a house" and "this is a river" is a symbol of Man the mighty changing the face of Nature. The running and catching games like "Tag" and "I spy," "Hide and go seek," "Rellevo" are really war games, with training in endurance, agility, cool-headedness, cooperation and rivalry as their goals. Only