“A Mother’s Responsibility as a Citizen”
The Pond’s Program
Friday, February 3, 1933
ER: Mothers are usually so busy taking care of their homes and their children, and thinking about the children’s education and their clothes, and how they can manage the family budget, and give all the members of the family what they need with the least possible expense, that it sometimes slips their minds that they have one more duty and responsibility which they cannot escape, namely their responsibility as citizens. This is a very vital responsibility because on the way that they fulfill their obligations toward their government will depend the attitude of their children towards the government and their own citizenship.
Example is always the greatest teacher, and if the child has grown up in a home where Mother and Father feel a responsibility for the community, that child will undoubtedly begin early to feel that he has a responsibility for the community. The mother can do a great deal toward bringing this about.
I remember going on a picnic with some young friends of mine one day last summer in one of the public parks of the state. And I was tremendously struck to find those girls and boys, at the end of our meal, picking up their papers and all the debris and putting it into the cans which were provided for it in every state camping ground, but which are placidly ignored by most people. I watched all this with care and then inquired if the youngsters belonged to a Boy or Girl Scout troop. I was told, no, that there were no troops near their home. So I asked them who had taught them to be so considerate of other people and such good campers, and they promptly responded, “Mother.”
“She says that if the state provides us with parks, it’s up to us as good citizens to see that they are kept nicely for everybody who wants to use them.” It was a good example of a mother who was taking her responsibility as a citizen, and as a trainer of citizens, seriously. And making a very good job of it.
If the mother and father vote on Election Day—even though they have to give up some time and perhaps some money in order to do so—the children will be apt to ask what it means to vote and why it is important. And there is the first opportunity for our first lesson in democracy. Here is the chance to explain that, while in this country there may be many inequalities, this is one thing in which we are all equal. We all have but one vote, and we may all use that voting franchise to express our own opinions.
It is the mother’s responsibility to see that questions which affect the public good in the community and in the state and in the country are discussed at the table and around the fire so that her children will really become interested in talking about something more than the small gossip about their friends and their own plans and immediate concerns.
Conversation and interchange of views is one of our great educations in general knowledge. And the mother can make out of the home a forum where real public opinion is formed. No matter how busy she is, she can probably take some part in community life. And it seems to me that every citizen should do something to bring himself in touch with the rest of the world, and have an interest in and work for the common cause.
At first the mother, because of her children, may be interested in the school board and the affairs of the school. She should be certainly interested in the sanitation and in the way in which the rules and regulations and laws are enforced in her community. [There is] a good example at the present moment right here in New York City of what individual mothers can do for the good of the children in general. Some 100,000 children are hungry and are lacking the best food. A plan has been evolved whereby every individual will find slipped around the milk bottle delivered to the door a little pledge slip asking those who are able to contribute the price of a quart of milk a day for as long a period as possible, to keep someone else’s child in good health. Here is a concrete example of where a mother, if her budget will permit, can give tangible proof to her child that she is a good citizen of her community and has the good of all children at heart.
A determined group of women can sometimes effect great reforms in their surroundings. I remember a small village on a little island off the coast of Maine where the women once decided that a speakeasy, about half a mile away along the shore, was making their lives unbearable. In a body they marched down one night and burned that speakeasy to the ground and drove the man who owned it off the island. He never returned. And, as far as I could see, there was no great resentment amongst the men, who continued to lead their lives quite happily without him.
As citizens, if mothers would just get together and agree on what they wanted, I think they would find that their influence and power was very much greater than they had ever dreamed. A mother has a twofold responsibility: that of using her own influence as much as her duties will permit to bring about the end which she desires, and the power of her example on the future citizens.
These are great responsibilities, but [also] a great satisfaction because with them she can make her home and her country a safer and pleasanter place for her children. And from her interest in her own children, she will gradually realize that the well-being of all the children in the community must be of interest to her, for undoubtedly it affects her own home and her own children.