The Colored Girl Beautiful Part 9

It is a woman's own fault if, at forty the lines in her face turn down and if her hair and teeth are all gone. If she is a "nagger" the reflection will appear in her face. If she has permitted household cares to swamp her, and reflect themselves in her face and body, she has no one to blame but herself.

Many a woman has attracted her husband through her singing, conversation, or other accomplishments and after marriage has permitted these to decline, and has not lived up to the ideal that she gave him before marriage.

A wife should ask herself if she is living up to the ideal she suggested before she married, or if she is a disappointment, before she questions her husband's conduct.

Some wives think that their morality in wifehood is all sufficient. A woman may boast of her "virtue" until doom's day, but "if her soul is small and her heart stingy" her example is not worthy of imitation--for she is only good to herself. She has no way of proving the owners.h.i.+p of the "virtue of virtues." It takes many virtues to make one "good," in the real sense of the word.

A colored wife should not be discontented without good cause nor should she complain of monotony when she may choose so many helpful diversions, and may help to make others happy.

Every colored wife who has not borne children, or a wife who has lost children owes a duty to the children of others.

In fact, these owe a greater debt to posterity than the mother. Such women should not live for themselves alone, lest they canker. Contact with youth infuses youthful thoughts and enthusiasm, and keeps a woman's heart young, and if her heart is young her face will reflect this mental att.i.tude.

There are thousands of children with living mothers who still need "mothering." One may work out her own youth and beauty culture while "mothering" a little one. It is worth a trial as a youth stimulant.

There are four great laws given to a wife:

"Brace up! Brush up! Clean up! Look up!"

The Colored Mother Beautiful.

When a woman enters into the marriage contract--into the partners.h.i.+p of home making--it is understood that parenthood is to be the chief aim and hope.

If a man is good enough to marry and to contribute his support, he is good enough to be a father or else he should not have been selected.

A woman who marries and does not intend to have children is merely an object of convenience who has sold herself.

To a.s.sume the position of colored motherhood is the greatest privilege and responsibility that can come to any woman in this age.

The colored mother beautiful carries a heavy burden--the weight of future generations of a handicapped, persecuted people. She may bless or curse each succeeding generation; she may change race history; she may make a more beautiful race with the beauty that comes from beauty of character and right living.

What a privilege to carve the destiny of a race! How glorious to look into the future and see lines of ancestry influenced and advanced by her thought and example, to see her stamp of personality upon a posterity which will point to her in pride and thankfulness!

The time has come when each colored girl must prepare herself for this rare privilege, when she must distribute her powers and talents for race good.

Whatever the colored mother is, millions of colored children will be. A colored mother lives not only for herself and for her own children, but she must live for the race. A colored mother is a success as she measures up to her relation and obligation to the race.

Negro children of all children need mothers who are strong spiritually, physically, and intellectually. Enough colored children have been born under bad or careless conditions. The child born under bad conditions can not be expected to hold his own among other children.

No woman has a right to blight the future of her race. Not even her body may be abused--this beautiful casket--the treasure house of future souls. Any crime that she commits against herself or her body she commits against the race.

Almost any colored mother would lay down her life for her children but she must have a wider vision into the scheme of life and the world, and must deliberately plan to make her grand-children and great grand-children healthier, happier and more useful.

While it is admitted that heredity is not all, yet inherited tendencies have great influence.

The colored mother beautiful must be a living example of all that is progressive. She must study more about the laws of heredity, and child culture to prepare the child for its race battle, unhampered by inherited mental or physical tendencies.

The "gray matter" in the colored woman's head is the same as the gray matter in any woman's head. Through the exercise of will power she may conquer inherited tendencies and even command nature as other women are doing.

There are many books which will guide and instruct a prospective mother who should read and learn all she can on the laws of reproduction. She should absorb this knowledge that she may be able to impart it to less informed women.

The early Romans are said to have surrounded a prospective mother with examples of courage and strength.

The mother of Napoleon is an example of the power of pre-natal direction. She is said to have studied military tactics and to have visited battlefields. The mother of Michael Angelo is said to have watched the painters of pictures in the Cathedral. The result was the greatest artist of the time.

As mental impressions are as active during the night as in the day, no prospective mother should carry unpleasant thoughts to bed. The sub-conscious mind receives the bad thought at bed time and acts all night under this influence. Its forces affect the same as thoughts during the day.

The prospective mother should read good books, think right, live right, and keep a pure mind and heart, thus developing a deeper nature to bequeath.

More than anything else, the prospective colored mother must practice self-control. All worry is poisonous. Strong thoughts of disgust and hatred if not controlled during the pre-natal period are liable to leave disastrous affects. The aim should be to train herself to change any thought which will create a physical disturbance.

Mothers who fail to control their tempers, pa.s.sions, and indulgences too often weep bitter tears as they see in their off-spring the consequences of their own wrong doing.

Someone has said: "Parents transmit deviltry to children and then punish them for it." Instance after instance of such cruelty could be cited.

Why should parents expect their children to be better than they?

Anger causes a chemical change which acts like poison to the system of an adult. It affects the heart, stomach, blood, and nerves and causes many other disturbances.

"Often the unborn child's little organism is flooded with shocks of pa.s.sion and disturbed by nervous movements which cause unsound mind and body."

Altho inheritance comes from two lines of ancestry, the prospective mother may be able to control and supervise the tendencies from her line. She must do all in her power before the birth of a child to sway it for good. She may then save herself years of worry and sorrow and the race an unworthy example.

Before and after birth the colored mother beautiful will cultivate and give out the best in her. No contrary or selfish thought will be permitted because of the bad effect upon the child. These unpleasant things will enter soon enough into its life. The mother will faithfully endeavor to be an example to her children in thought, poise, speech, personal appearance and in all forms of cleanliness and politeness.

A child's ideal seldom goes higher than that of its mother. Children very accurately reflect the thought of their parents.

How can the child have high ideals and elevating thoughts unless the mother has them?

Taste is said to be a faculty of the soul. The mother bequeaths her taste.

How can the colored mother beautiful expect her children to have habits of observation and appreciation of the beautiful in Nature, Art, Science, Music and Literature, unless the mother has "walked and talked with nature, has heard the tongues in trees and brooks" as Shakespeare has said, and has pointed these out to the child?

If the starlight, the moonlight, the dawn, the sunrise, the sunset, the blue sky, the tranquility of a summer day or the grandeur of a storm have no response in the mother's soul, then how can a child be expected to lift its eyes and see the beautiful everywhere, every day and absorb the benefits from such communion?

The physical feeding of a child occurs but three times a day but the spiritual, mental and moral feeding goes on all the rest of the time.

Children should be fed ideals of thought and affection to counteract the evil effect of thoughts of pa.s.sion.

The colored child should be taught to think and should be given opportunity for a quiet hour for self communion and self entertainment.

It should be taught to live a period of solitude so that in after life it may not always be compelled to hunt around for entertainment and excitement.

How can the child be expected to love reading if the mother does not read to it?

How can the child love music if the mother does not play or sing to it or teach it songs?

How many nights are wasted that might be spent in giving colored children ideals of home life and right habits in reading and home study?