Assignments

1.Comprehension & discussion questions

1. How did Antonia’s husband feel about her?

2. How does he describe himself?

3. Why does he describe his getting married as a decisive step?

4. What education did Antonia get?

5. What were her parents?

6. What similies are used to describe Antonia?

Text 2

The Children

By C. Northcote Parkison¹

Granted that children may be desirable, we have next to decide upon their number. All enlightened thought rejects the only child, thus making two the minimum, just insufficient to maintain the population at its present level. A family comprising one boy or one girl might be thought well balanced, but with too much reliance on the son's survival. In view of the fact that s single illness or accident might extinguish the family's male line there is some reason to have a reserve. With that secure most people would regard the family as complete.

The large family of five or more is not, however, generally desirable. While it may offer a good upbringing to the childen this is only by a sacrifice of the parents. Five children at an average interval of two years must imply a quarter of a century, more or less, spent in changing nappies and supervising homework. This is justifiable only on the assumption that the children matter more than the parents. But why should this be assumed? There are instances, to be sure, where the fact is evident, but the theory that parents should always live for their children is absurd. That the child might be an Isaak Newton is true, but the father might be Johann Sebastian Bach. To conclude that each generation must matter less than the next is ridiculous and will lead us nowhere…

All that is left for the child-oriented parent is the prospect of becoming a grandparent. This is merely an opportunity to make the same mistake again. It is true that a grandmother is sometimes the answer to the baby-sitter problem, but this hardly justifies her in making a baby-sitting career. For the sad fact is that marrying early has changed the pattern of grandmaternity. The girl who marries at 18 may be no more than 37 when her daughter acts as hastily. The only solution is to be less obsessed with children from the outset. First to benefit from this more careless attitude are the children themselves. Where mother and father devote themselves to parenthood, children gain a wrong notion of their own importance. Taking themselves too seriously, they feel that their point of view is significant; that the world of today is something which only they can comprehend; and that the future of mankind must hinge on what they say or do. This sense of mission has led some politicians to believe that young people have a new maturity. The fact is that to have matured at even the normal speed they would have needed, from the beginning, to have talked a great deal less and learnt a great deal more.