For both there are always the little ailments of childhood,--the hurts,
the accidents, and the disorders or the diseases of youthful years. All
come in for a share. Let us be careful how we deal with them. I have
often watched with interest a mother beside the girl or boy in temporary
pain. As a rule, she assumes from the beginning that the hurt boy is to
be taught silent, patient endurance. What! you, a boy, to cry! Be a man!
Among his comrades he is a "cry-baby" if he whimpers, "a regular girl,"
"a girl-boy." He is taught early that from him endurance is expected;
the self-conquest of restrained emotion is his constant lesson.

If it be a girl who suffers, she is assumed to be weak, and it is felt
that for her tears are natural and not to be sternly repressed; nor are
her little aches and complaints dismissed as lightly as are her
brother's. She is trained to expect sympathy, and learns that to weep is
her prerogative. The first gush of tears after a hurt of body or mind is
in some mysterious way a relief, and not rudely to be chidden; but, on
the whole, it is wise and right to teach patience and unemotional
endurance to the sex which in life is sure to have the larger share of
suffering. To be of use, this education must begin reasonably early, and
we may leave to the mother to make sure that it is not too severe.

As a girl grows older, we ask and expect some measure of restraint in
emotional expression as regards any of the physical or moral troubles
which call out tears in the child; for the woman who is wise understands
that unrestrained emotion and outward expressions of pain or distress
are the beginnings of that loss of self-rule which leads to habitual
unrestraint, and this to more and more enfeeblement of endurance, and
this, again, to worse things, of which more in the future.