CHILD vs. PARENT

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

Child versus Parent

Some Chapters on the Irrepressible Conflict
in the Home

BY

STEPHEN S. WISE

RABBI OF THE FREE SYNAGOGUE

Author of "The Ethics of Ibn Gabirol," "How to Face Life,"
"Free Synagogue Pulpit," etc.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Copyright, 1922,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1922.

BROWN BROTHERS, LINOTYPERS
NEW YORK

TO THE MEMORY
OF
MY MOTHER,
SABINE de FISCHER WISE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

FACING THE PROBLEM

One way of averting what I have called the irrepressible conflict is to insist that, in view of the fundamental change of attitude toward the whole problem, the family is doomed. Even if the family were doomed, some time would elapse before its doom would utterly have overtaken the home. In truth, the family is not doomed quite yet, though certain views with respect to the family are,—and long ought to have been,—extinct. Canon Barnett[A] was nearer the truth when he declared: "Family life, it may be said, is not 'going out' any more than nationalities are going out; both are 'going on' to a higher level." To urge that the problem of parental-filial contact need not longer be considered, seeing that the family is on the verge of dissolution, is almost as simple as the proposal of the seven-year-old colored boy in the children's court, in answer to the kindly inquiry of the Judge: "You have heard what your parents have to say about you. Now, what can you say for yourself?" "Mistah Judge, I'se only got dis here to say: I'd be all right if I jes had another set of parents."

For the problem persists and is bound to persist as long as the relationships of the family-home obtain. The social changes which have so markedly affected marriage have no more elided marriage than the vast changes which have come over the home portend its dissolution. It is as true as it ever was that the private home is the public hope. A nation is what its homes are. With these it rises and falls, and it can rise no higher than the level of its home-life. Marriage, said Goethe, is the origin and summit of civilization; and Saleeby