A Domestic Problem | Page 9

leisure time with sewing. "Look," said a
young mother to me: "I made all these myself, when holding the baby,
or by sitting up nights." They were children's clothes, beautifully made,
and literally covered with ruffles and embroidery. Oh the thousands of
stitches! The ruffles ran up and down, and over and across, and three
times round. Being white, the garments were of course changed daily.
In the intervals of baby-tending, the mother snatched a few minutes
here and a few minutes there to starch, iron, flute, or crimp a ruffle, or
to finish off a dress of her own. This "finishing off" was carried on for
weeks. When her baby was asleep, or was good, or had its little ruffles
all fluted, and its little sister's little ruffles were all fluted, then would
she seize the opportunity to stitch, to plait, to flounce, to pucker, and to
braid. Wherever a hand's breadth of the original material was left
visible, some bow, or band, or queer device, was fashioned and sewed
on. This zealous individual, by improving every moment, by sitting up
nights, by working with the baby across her lap, accomplished her task.
The dress was finished, and worn with unutterable complacency. It is
this last part which is the worst part. They have no misgivings, these
mothers. They expect your warm approval. "I can't get a minute's time
to read," said this industrious person; and, on another occasion, "I'll
own up, I don't know any thing about taking care of children." Swift,
speaking of women, said that they "employ more thought, memory, and
application to become fools than would serve to make them wise and
useful;" and perhaps he spoke truly. For suppose this young mother had

been as eager to gain ideas as she was to accomplish a bias band, a
French fold, or a flounce. Suppose that, in the intervals of baby-tending,
instead of fluting her little girls' ruffles and embroidering their
garments, she had tried to snatch some information which would help
her in the bringing up of those little girls. The truth is, mothers take
their leisure time for what seems to them to be first in importance. It is
easy to see what they consider essentials, and what, from them,
children are learning to consider essentials. The "knowingness" of
some of our children on subjects connected with dress is simply
appalling. A girl of eight or ten summers will take you in at a glance,
from topmost plume to boot-tap, by items and collectively, analytically
and synthetically. She discourses, in technical terms, of the fall of your
drapery,--the propriety of your trimmings, and the effect of this, that, or
the other. She has a proper appreciation of what is French in your attire,
and a proper scorn of what is not. She recognizes "real lace" in a
twinkle of her eye, and "all wool" with a touch of her finger-tips.
Plainly clad school-children are often made to suffer keenly by the
cutting remarks of other school-children sumptuously arrayed. A little
girl aged six, returning from a child's party, exclaimed, "O mamma!
What do you think? Bessie had her dress trimmed with lace, and it
wasn't real!"
The law, "No child shall walk the street in a plain dress," is just as
practically a law as if it had been enacted by the legal authorities.
Mothers obey its high behests, and dare not rebel against it. Look at our
little girls going to school, each with her tucks and ruffles. Who "gets
time" to do all that sewing? where do they get it, and at what sacrifices?
A goodly number of stitches and moments go to the making and putting
on of even one ruffle on one skirt. Think of all the stitches and
moments necessary for the making and putting of all the ruffles on all
the skirts of the several little girls often belonging to one family! What
a prospect before her has a mother of little girls! And there is no escape,
not even in common sense. A woman considered sensible in the very
highest degree will dress her little girl like other little girls, or perish in
the attempt. How many do thus perish, or are helped to perish, we shall
never know. A frail, delicate woman said to me one day, "Oh, I do hope
the fashions will change before Sissy grows up, for I don't see how it

will be possible for me to make her clothes." You observe her
submissive, law-abiding spirit. The possibility of evading the law never
even suggests itself. There is many a feeble mother of grown and
growing "Sissys" to whom the spring or fall dressmaking appears like
an avalanche coming to overwhelm her, or a Juggernaut coming to roll
over her. She asks not,