Chapter 35: Don't Take Your Business Troubles Home

A judge of large experience says that one of the chief grievances of women who come to him for relief through divorce is that their husbands neglect them and their homes for business, giving their minds so completely to affairs that even when at home they are only surly brutes with whom the angels themselves could not lead happy domestic lives.

We all know men who are agreeable and cheerful at the club, but who become cross and intolerably disagreeable the moment they get home. They seem to think that they have license to vent their spleen at home, as it belongs to them. If anyone has injured them during the day, they seem to try to get even by maltreating members of their own family. Some men rarely look pleasant in their homes. They reserve their sunshine for the outside world; they carry their gloom, their sadness, and their melancholy home for family consumption. Their home-coming is dreaded as a disturbing element. Many a man thwarts all his wife's efforts at home-making by turning a smiling face to the world, and a sour, fault-finding one to his home.

Think of such a man coming home to snarl at a woman who loves him in spite of his faults, and who has remained home all day caring for the children, enduring the thousand and one annoyances of housekeeping and baby tending. She has been trying to make the home the cleanest, sweetest place on earth for her little ones and her husband, waiting and watching for his return, and then is grieved to the heart to have him return with a haggard, repulsive face, worn out and disgruntled because something has gone wrong in his business. He enters with a growl for his greeting, pushing the children out of the way, and taking refuge as soon as possible behind a book or a paper. Then he wonders why his home is not more agreeable, why his wife does not think more of him, and why his children do not run to meet him with the old-time joy and gladness. Some of them even complain that their homes are not congenial, and that, if they could get the home encouragement, support, and harmony that they crave, they would be more successful.

My dear friend, how much have you ever done to deserve the harmony, love, and encouragement which you fail to get? Did you ever realize what it means to the sensitive girl whom you have taken out of congenial, harmonious surroundings, and put into a strange home, to be greeted with a grunt or a growl, and met with a face full of disgust with all the world, herself seemingly included? Do you wonder that this gentle, responsive soul becomes discouraged after a while, and meets you with indifference? Do you wonder that your children, sensitive to your moods, prefer to play by themselves, or with other children, rather than to be pushed from the knees of the man who never has time to fondle them, or to romp and play with them? Do you, fathers, wonder that your daughters are not fonder of you? Why, they scarcely know you except by a hurried "Goodnight” and the check that is given to pay the quarter at the boarding school. You have not taken the time to get acquainted with your family. Perhaps you have seen less of your sons and daughters in the years when they have been coming to manhood and womanhood than have their chums and friends. You may know less about them than your neighbors do.

Your children are naturally as full of play as young kittens. They do not know anything about your business troubles. When they see you come home, they ought to think of you as a new playfellow, fresh from the mysterious "down-town." They cannot imagine anything more important than to have fun, — and you would not have them think otherwise. You want to keep the serious side of life from them as long as possible, to prolong their childhood, so that they may develop normally and their hearts may be tender and responsive to the noble things of life.

Oh, how many fathers crush all the spontaneous, bubbling spirit out of the lives of their children by trying to make them adults in their childhood! It is a sorry day when a child gets the impression that his father is not his playmate, or when he does not long for him to come home so that he can have a good time. He easily becomes discouraged and disheartened when he is constantly told, "Don't do that,'' or “Get away.” His spontaneity is soon dampened and his enthusiasm quenched. He becomes prematurely sour, cynical, and pessimistic. Is there a more pitiable picture than a long, anxious face upon a child, or lines of trouble already engraved upon youthful brows, and pallor where roses ought to be? What should the expression of maturity and care have to do with childish features? What have worry and anxiety about the future to do with childhood? Fathers, you do not know what you are doing when you rob your own flesh and blood of its childish joy. It is cruelty.

If optimism were woven into the very life and fiber of a child until it reached maturity, pessimism would have very little chance with it afterwards. The ideal father and mother of the future will never allow fear, anxiety, or worry to stamp its hideous image upon a child's life, for sunshine, sweetness, beauty, cheerfulness, and love will dominate the future home so completely that there will be no chance for shadows, discord, and a thousand other enemies of happiness to do their deadly work.

Ah! complaining man, the joys of the home come from giving and taking; they cannot be all one-sided. You cannot expect your wife and children to run with joy to meet such a crabbed, cross, disgruntled, forbidding creature as you are every night. Human nature is not made on that plan. Suppose you should go home and find your wife and home presenting such a forbidding, dejected, discouraging picture as you present! How would you like, every night, on your arrival at home, to have your wife fill your ears with all the little troubles she has had during the day with the servants and the hundreds of little annoyances that come to every house-keeper? You would not go home at all to such a greeting, if you could help it. A model wife and mother hides these unpleasant things from her husband. She knows that he does not wish to be bothered or annoyed with them. She is determined to meet him with a cheerful face and a smile, so that his home may seem the pleasantest place on earth to him.

You must bring sunshine with you if you expect it to be reflected back to you. You cannot expect to get sunshine in return for gloom, despondency, irritability, and crabbedness. The rate of exchange is not that way. Your home is an investment, and you will get back in kind just what you put into it, with plenty of interest. If your investment is mean, stingy, and contemptible, you cannot expect to draw large dividends of sweetness, serenity, repose, and happiness. A home is a bank of happiness. If you deposit counterfeit money, you cannot expect to draw out the genuine coin of social exchange. Home is like a whispering gallery, and the echoes must follow the initial impulse or voice. It is like a mirror which reflects whatever face you make into it. If you scowl, it will scowl back; if you laugh, it will laugh in response. There is no way for you to get happiness out of a home unless you put happiness-material into it.

Not only on account of your home, but also on your own account, you should not keep business in mind all the time. A bow that is always bent loses its elasticity, so that it will not send the arrow home with force when there is need. A man who is thinking day and night about his business weakens his faculties, and loses his buoyancy and "snap," by never allowing them a chance to become freshened, strengthened, and rejuvenated. He becomes narrow and selfish; his sympathies and affections become atrophied or petrified. Home recreation broadens a man, enlarges his sympathies, and exercises many faculties that necessarily lie dormant during the stress of business hours.

If you will make a practice, in your leisure hours, of giving yourself up completely to recreation, to having a grand, good romp with the children, or a social game with the whole family, making up your mind that you will have a good time during the evening, no matter what may happen on the morrow, you will find yourself in much better condition the next day to enter the business or professional arena. You will be much fresher and stronger, will have much more elasticity and spontaneity, and will do your work much easier, and with much loss friction, than if you think, think, think of business all the time you are at home.

No matter if your business affairs are not going just as you would have them, you are only wasting the energy and mental power which would enable you to overcome these unfortunate conditions by dragging your business into your home, and worrying and fretting your family about things that they cannot help.

If you would form the habit of locking all your cross-grained, crabbed, ugly, critical nagging and worrying in your store or office at night, and resolve that, whether your business or profession is a success or a failure, your home shall be a success, — the happiest, sweetest, and cleanest place on earth to you and yours, you would find it a greater investment than any you ever made in a business way.

It is a reflection upon your own business ability that you cannot make a living during business hours. Your ill humor is a confession to your wife of your weakness and incapacity, and of your not being master of the situation, or equal to confronting emergencies. Women naturally admire strength, capacity, efficiency, and courage in men. They admire a man who cannot only make a living, but also make it easily, without fretting, stewing, or worrying. Your wife will think less of you if you continually lug home your business cares.

This does not mean that you should not keep your wife informed about your business. Every man should talk over his affairs with his wife, and she should always know the exact condition of his business. Many a man has come to grief by keeping his wife in ignorance of his straitened circumstances or declining business, or of the fact that he was temporarily pressed for capital and unable to indulge in certain luxuries. A good wife will help a man amazingly in his business troubles or struggles to get established if she knows just how he is situated and what is required of her. Her economy and her planning may give just the needed support; her sympathy may take out the sting of the pain, and enable him to bear his trials. This confiding frankly in a wife is a very different thing from everlastingly harping on the disagreeable features of a business or letting them ruin your attitude toward your family, making life miserable for those not to blame.

Good cheer, a feeling of good-will toward one another and toward other people, and a spirit of helpfulness and utter unselfishness should always be present in the home. It should be regarded as the most sacred spot on earth. The husband should look upon it as the one place in all the world where he can get away from business troubles, and the exactions, grinding, and crowding of life's struggles, — a place to which he can flee from all inharmony and discord, and find peace and rest, contentment and satisfaction. It should be a place where he always longs to go, and from which he is loath to part

Better fail in money-making than in home-making.