Judge, 1921-09-24 · page 8 of 36
Judge — September 24, 1921 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "As the Twig Is Bent" – Satire on Child-Rearing Advice This story satirizes the unintended consequences of parenting advice about enforcing absolute truthfulness. Mrs. Higgson attends Professor Wisely's lecture on "Child Culture" and begins rewarding her son Harold for never deviating from truth—a popular early-20th-century parenting philosophy emphasizing moral development. The joke: Harold becomes brutally, socially destructive honest. When a visitor arrives, he boasts he can beat her son, then tattles on the family's household problems—the maid's complaints about wages and poor food, the iceman's threats, his parents' marital arguments. His mother, mortified, must silence him despite her stated commitment to truthfulness. The satire mocks both trendy parenting theories and their naive application. By following the lecture's advice literally, Mrs. Higgson created an insufferable child whose "truth" damages social relationships—the opposite of the intended moral development. The cartoon suggests such fashionable child-rearing methods often backfire when pursued rigidly without nuance.
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As the Twig Is Bent By PAUL CREIGHTON RE you attending Professor Wisely’s class in ‘Child Cul- ture’?” asked Mrs. Higgson while re- ceiving a call from Mrs. Rylon. “I do not remember to have seen you at the class. I have not missed a single lecture and I am finding them invalua- ble. The lesson, or lecture, yesterday was on ‘The Falsehoods of Children’ and, truly, it was startling. It gave me a new idea regarding helping one’s children to always tell the ab- solute truth. It is shocking to realize how innate lying seems to be in the human mind. We parents do owe such a duty to our children when it comes to having them tell the exact truth. I began at once with my little Harold and have offered him a hand- some prize if he will not deviate one iota from the exact truth for a month, «nd—O, here he is now! Harold, dear, this is Mrs. Rylon. She has a little boy about your age.” “1 bet I can lick him with one hand tied behind me!” “Why, Harold, you should not say a thing like that!” “Well, it’s the truth, and you said for me to always tell the truth, mamma.” “Never mind, Mrs. Higgson,” said Mrs. Rylon sweetly, with a telltale hiting of her lips. “Ma,” added the adept in Truth, “I crawled in at the pantry window to-day, and while I was pinching some cookies I heard Bridget tell her cousin in the kitchen that she was going to leave Saturday night if she didn’t get the five weeks’ pay owed her, and she said we had the skimpi- est table she ever saw and that you made one cantaloupe do for five and that—" Drawn by W. Optimist wT, GARDE. LiperTY Bonps. Drawn by CH “Harold!” “And she said, the iceman said, that to-day was the last time he would leave ice if he didn’t get the money for—” Harold! run out and play!” ever mind, Mrs. Higgson. I know just what children are,” said Mrs. Rylon. “I suppose you go to schgol, Harold?” “I have to, but I hate it. hate Sunday school worse! And ma makes me y to church. Wish I was pa, for she can’t work the church dope on pa, nor anything else he don’t want worked on him. There was a big scrap at the table this morning when ma tried to work pa for fifteen dollars for—” “Harold. I insist on you running out to play.” y, be going my: id the caller. say, I am sure Prof. Wisely’s lectures on ‘Child Culture’ must be so interesting and profitable if the mothers only apply them in their And I GAD, I'M IMPROVING—THAT ONE MISSED ME A Foot! s own homes, as you do. Good-bye, Harold. So glad you obey mamma and always tell the truth!” “Ma, began Harold after the visitor left. “Never mind!” interrupted his mother, “you march up stairs, young man!” Things Women Dislike By J. W. WOLFE W RINKLES. Photographs that look like her. n elevators. zched men. Lack of mirrors Kisses from mus Gray hair. Embonpoint. Double chins. Anniversaries of birthdays. Indifferent men. Red noses. Too much truth. Masculine mush. Bores. Sunday morning. “Yes,” the first time. Things That Men Dislike Hysteria. Gift cigars. Lounge lizards. Insurance agents. Non-essentials. Signs forbidding smoking. Prohibition. Vamps. Useless women. Feminine viewpoints. Dowdy coiffures. Knock-kneed women. Jealous wives. Ivory-domed men. Taxes. Egg View News-notes By LESLIE VAN EVERY "THE White Mule Club will give its first fox-trot assembly over the lockup Tuesday night. Dancing from 9 till 9:15. Everybody come!—Adv. Lem Bushnell, our marshall, has got word that Witt Larcom is out West trying to break into the movies. Lem don’t doubt it, as he = sus- picioned Witt of having broke into the grocery here several times dur- ing the past. There is so much heat held in re- serve by a full-grown bumble-bee that Corny Paine can’t figure out why it always dies when cold weath- er comes. The Balancer Scorn, if ye will, the lowbrow who. Aye with a knife his peas doth eat; But give the devil his just due: Admit—it is a dextrous feat!