CHILDREN'S PARTIES

Abstract

CHILDREN'S PARTIES are among the many peculiarities of our present social life. Doubtless children have always more or less had their parties, but the scale and style of them at the present day are something quite peculiar. The little guests are summoned 2 or 3 weeks beforehand, probably by gilt-edged circulars, and in terms formal and complimentary. They assemble in the evening and stay well on towards midnight. We shall leave to others the consideration of the moral consequences to the juvenile mind of this early acquaintance with all the forms of fashionable society and shall confine ourselves to a consideration of the physical consequences, which we take to be injurious and undesirable. Children are excited beforehand and still more at the time. They are dressed insufficiently; they dance themselves into great fatigue; they eat and drink at late evening hours what would try their digestion badly enough in its midday vigour; and, worst of all, they lose from 2 to 6 hours' sleep. The ulterior consequences of this entire disarrangement of their habits and their functions are paleness, languor, and the development of various other ailments, according to the constitutional peculiarities of the children. By all means let children have their own gatherings, but let them be within reasonable hours. Let food be simple, dress sufficient and warm, and above all let not the previous hours of sleep be curtailed just when, by reason of excitement and exhaustion, they need to be extended. We have heard of simpler nations than ours, which have their children's gatherings in the early afternoon, at which the repast is plain and which break up when ours are beginning. English parents should imitate this simplicity. What pleasure are children to get out of society when they become young men and women, if they are to be satiated and exhausted with formal and late evening parties when they have barely got into their teens?