http://www.gracegems.org/20/female_piety12.htm
To read the full article go to the link above. Here's an excerpt;
Human nature is made to be moved and governed by love””to be drawn with the cords of affection, rather than to be dragged with the chains of severity.
And woman's heart is made to love! Love is exerted more gently, sweetly, and constrainingly upon her child, by her than by the other sex.
It makes her more patient, and more ingenious, and therefore, more influential. Her words are more soft, her smile more winning, her frown more commanding, because less alarming and repulsive. The little floweret she has to nurture, opens its petals more readily to the mild beams of her countenance. Hence, to repeat an expression of Monod, already quoted, "The greatest moral power in the world is that which a mother exercises over her young child." Nor is there much exaggeration in that other expression, "She who rocks the cradle””rules the world." An expression, the truth of which will appear to be founded on the next particular.
The mother has most to do with the character, while yet in the flexible state in which it receives its shape. The earliest exercises of thought, emotion, will, and conscience, are all carried on under her eye. She has to do not only with the body in its infancy, but with the soul in its childhood. Both mind and heart are in her hands at that period, when they take their first start for good or for evil. The children learn to lisp their first words, and to form their first ideas, under her teaching. They are almost always in her company, and are insensibly to themselves and imperceptibly to her, receiving a right or wrong bias from her! She is the first 'model of character' they witness””the first exhibitions of right and wrong in practice are what they see in her. They are the constant observers of the passions, the graces, the virtues, and the faults””which are shown in her words, disposition, and actions. She is therefore unconsciously to herself educating them, not only by designed teaching””but by all she does or says in their presence!
Children are imitative creatures. During their early years, imitation is the regent of the soul, and they who are least swayed by 'reason', are most governed by 'example'. Learning to talk is the effect of imitation””not intuition. And as children so early and so insensibly learn to repeat sounds, so may they also learn to copy actions and habits. This applies to the mother in a fuller sense than it does to the father of course, just because she is more constantly with the children in the early stages of their existence. It is therefore of immense importance that everyone who sustains this relation should have an accurate idea of her own great power over her children. She should be deeply and duly impressed with the potency of her influence.
