The Value of Shame in the Management of Children (fiction)

The Value of Shame in the Management of Children
A short study of late nineteenth and early twentieth century attitudes
By Governess
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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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That shame is an important part of disciplining a child is something that few today would acknowledge. But not so long ago it was regarded as an essential component of discipline if it was to be effective and bring about a transformation in the child's behaviour.

Eugenia Strang, a governess writing one hundred years ago, held the view that "a girl, whatever her age, needs to be taught that shame is the right emotion to feel when discovered in a sin." And the way for her governess to accomplish that objective was to ensure that the disciplinary response to her sinning is "deeply shaming as well as painful." For, as she says, "without shame there is no contrition and without contrition she will be unable to implore and accept forgiveness."

A review of the available literature dating from the half century between 1890 and 1940 reveals that Miss Strang's understanding was shared by most responsible parents, governesses and teachers. Were they right? Or is the current view that it is wrong to shame a child correct? If we examine the earlier understanding of shame as a valuable, indeed a necessary, disciplinary tool, perhaps we may discover something that has been lost and that needs to be learned afresh.

First and foremost, all are agreed that shame is a profoundly human emotion, and indeed one that marks us out from the animal creation. As Ann Courtney wrote at the end of the nineteenth century, "a dog who is beaten will learn to fear the rod; but a child who is beaten learns not only fear but also shame. While a dog may love his mistress, he has no sense of obligation to her: he is subject to her commands but never to her will."

Mrs Courtney was clear that a young child must be rigorously taught to obey commands by her governess: to come when he is called, to eat properly when food is set before him, and to cease from crying when ordered to do so. But "at some point," she says, "the child begins to discern that he is subject not to the commands themselves but to the will of his governess. And his governess's will, although inexorable and unbending when it comes to matters of conduct and discipline, is a potent expression of her love and caring."

She recognises that there is a tension, particularly acute in an older girl, "between indulging in selfish disobedience and obeying a governess whom she loves and wishes to please." A good governess will recognise this and "slowly nurture in the girl a sense of shame at sinfully satisfying herself, rather than submitting to the will of the authority set over her."

For Ann Courtney, a boy who is to be chastised should be spoken to not unkindly but with a firm but sorrowful concern that such a measure is necessary. "He should be aware that he has grieved his governess by his wilfulness. That he is being firmly but lovingly chastised so that he too may grieve and suffer for his sin. He must swallow the bitter pill of submission, whose healing properties are released only when he is truly broken and contrite in spirit."

Ann Courtney is adamant that particularly for a girl as she grows older and begins to mature, shame is an essential aid to her acquiring, a spirit of true humility. For "to bring a girl to that estimable state is something to which any governess inspired by Christian principles will not only hope for, but bend herself diligently to achieve."

There are many fascinating accounts in this period of the importance of shame in the governance of children. Perhaps the scene is best set by a quotation from a short article by Selina Bestwood in the 1901 autumn issue of Governess Exchange. She explains that a young child is like a plant, tender at first, where watering and feeding, and protective care are enough. But as the years go by and the plant becomes established, there is a requirement for more vigorous measures. "From around the age of eight," Miss Bestwood wrote, "the rampant increase of self-will in a boy often means that a governess must have recourse to the pruning hook of shame to cut away aberrant and destructive growth." This could take many and various forms, and it is difficult not to conclude that some governesses took a positive delight in refining their techniques, the more readily to bring a child under their control.

The most basic method of inculcating shame remained, of course, the stripping away of all modesty by baring the buttocks and the backs of the child's thighs for a well-deserved whipping. But this alone was judged by many to be insufficient to establish that poverty of spirit and meekness that were desirable. And other routines were developed to that end.

A very common approach was not only to make the child forfeit the privileges of his age but to reduce him to the status of a much younger child. This could take many forms. Vivienne Harris Chalmers, in the opening chapters of her autobiography, Windfalls from the Apple Tree, gives an account of her upbringing and schooling in the 1920s. Mrs Chalmers tells how at around the age of twelve she became, in her own words, "quite a little madam" and how, her governess, Miss Atkins, dealt with that by imposing a routine that was "more appropriate to a three-year-old." She was first soundly spanked and told that for the next week she would sit at table wearing a large white bib and be spoon-fed at every meal. "This was in front of my younger brother and sister and I positively shrivelled up at this shameful treatment."

However, worse was to come. "I was informed by my governess that on no account was I to go to the lavatory without first seeking her consent. At first hearing, this did not seem unduly irksome, until I realised that permission might be withheld and that I would have to control my bladder or worse by bowels until approval was given. And then, when permission was granted, I discovered that I had to sit crouched over a chamber pot in front of my brother and sister while I relieved myself."

On one occasion, Miss Atkins consistently refused Vivienne's request "to be excused" and left her to defecate into her knickers. For this she was upbraided and made to wear a nappy for the next two days, having to submit to Miss Atkins' cleaning and changing her on several occasions. She confessed to the efficacy of this humiliating routine in making her less of a "little madam." But, she wrote, "I still burn with shame at the frightful memory."

Not all governesses were quite so "thorough" as Miss Atkins. But there was a fairly widespread belief that to treat children as younger than their years was an acceptable and salutary discipline. This was often achieved by the mode of address or by denying the clothing appropriate to a child's age.

Helena Slighty mentions in an account of her late nineteenth century childhood that "for impertinence, my governess made me wear a pinafore when we went into town much to my shame." At the time she was twelve years of age. However, the more perceptive of governesses recognised that if there was to be benefit for a child then more than a passing embarrassment had to be endured. The treatment meted out to Helena may have been unpleasant, but whether it was deeply shaming and reformative has to be doubted.

From another issue of Governess Exchange, this time from 1911, Hermione Balantyne writes that "in my judgement the benefits of shaming a disobedient girl are unquestionable, but the shame that is truly valuable is a debasement in her own eyes as her spirited and wilful pride is broken and she is rendered submissive and prostrate before the will of her governess." Necessary humiliation was a "series of stepping stones, sharp and painful, that leave the girl's feet cut and bloodied but which bring her eventually through the flood to a place of humility and grace." She add, "all corporal correction should have this firmly in mind both in its devising and in its application."

For Miss Balantyne, whipping a girl consisted of far more than the physical pain engendered by the instrument of correction. For her it was a spiritual refining in which the girl experienced a remorseless stripping away of her dignity and her independence of spirit. This would continue until she was once more rigorously confined within the will of her governess.

And for Miss Balantyne the ritual of chastisement was of the greatest importance and was replete with meaning. "For an older girl to have her dress pinned up, her knickers lowered to her ankles, and her stockings rolled down is both humiliating and a sign that not only is she under my authority but that I regard her conduct as that of a small child." To add to a girl's shame Miss Balantyne would stand her so exposed to await her whipping in the corridor, face to the wall, with a sheet of paper pinned to her back stating the nature of her sin and the punishment that she was shortly to receive. How often, we wonder, did members of the household pass down that corridor in the hope of witnessing the girl's disgrace? And how that awareness must have deepened the girl's shame.

Although Miss Balantyne does not refer specifically to heightening a girl's shame by whipping her publicly, this was certainly a practice approved by many governesses as well as parents. Christabel Sullivan, a governess in the first decade of the twentieth century, acutely observed that for an older child, "the shame of exposure may be slowly blunted when she is disciplined by the same mother or governess who has whipped her over the years." The remedy advocated by Miss Sullivan was simple: "whip the child, whether boy or girl, before others, so that shame that has become weak and endurable may become once more an insupportable ignominy."

Grace Randall a governess, again in the first decade of the twentieth century, recounts how she would often summon one of the house parlour maids to the schoolroom on some pretext before birching Violet, the eldest child. "She would be suffused with shame when Alice entered and viewed her with her dress pinned up, naked and awaiting birchen discipline. Sometimes I would add to her shame and confusion by telling Alice the reason for her whipping and how many strokes she was to receive. On one occasion I made Alice hold her wrists while I administered the rod . . . After this Violet was much subdued."

Shaming as the exposure of what the child would wish to remain hidden is a regular theme throughout much of the literature. Eugenia Strang, writing before the First World War, was adamant that "a responsible parent or governess rules the whole of a child's life . . . Not only a girl's outward life and behaviour should be subject to rigorous control, but also her inner life. There should be no secret recess where she can creep and hide, no hidden place in her imagination where she can harbour unruly thoughts and where sin can breed."

Today, most would find this infringement of a child's right to an independent, imaginative existence deeply disturbing. They might wonder, too, how such an all pervasive discipline could be enforced. But Miss Strang had no such problems. A child's outward misbehaviour was for her rooted in a hidden life, misshapen by sinful self-regard, and it was this "inner nest of corruption" that needed to be cleansed. Miss Strang was quite clear that a wilful child was well aware of angry thoughts, of that inner rebellion that was never outwardly expressed, and clear too that these needed to be exposed and brought into the light of day so that they could be purged. To this end, she recommended a weekly confessional so that sinful thoughts and hidden wickedness might be laid bare.

"A careful parent or governess will during the course of the week closely observe the child. They will note that suppressed anger at an instruction, that petulance when opposed, that loss of patience when faced with a demanding task. At the end of the week, the child must be made, however reluctantly, to confess to these sins and to submit to the necessary discipline."

The denial, too, to a child of the right to keep hidden the shameful details of discipline is referred to in a number of autobiographies. Anna Seagrave in A Thorny Rose gives a harrowing account of how her governess, whom she never names, was an adept at shaming her in public. "How often I reddened with shame as my governess informed me in the hearing of others that my bare bottom would be soundly spanked with the hairbrush once we returned home."

Eugenia Strang also perceptively remarks that the secret that an older girl "most fervently wishes to keep hidden is that she is still disciplined with the rod." A girl who has attained eleven or twelve years may believe that she is grown up, but Miss Strang was adamant that there should be no pandering to this. "Those who oppose the well deserved application of the birch to older girls are foolish in the extreme. It is a belief sown by the Devil that once a girl has reached a certain age bad conduct should go unpunished. The rod only ceases to be necessary when a girl's behaviour is uniformly governed by a steady and robust maturity of outlook. Until then she should be governed by a responsible adult's having recourse to the implement of correction appropriate for her years. And such discipline should be publicly and openly acknowledged to the child's mortification."

In addition to the shaming routine of the birch, Miss Strang employed specific measures to prick any pretensions to an early maturity. "An older girl who has too high a regard for herself should be made publicly to submit to your will. If she speaks out of turn in a shop, rebuke her sharply and make her stand with her hands held to the back of her neck in silence while you continue discussing your purchase. If she has told an untruth, hang a notice around her neck on which is written 'I am a liar' and insist that she wear this when accompanying you into town. If she has disobeyed you that morning, attach a short leash to her wrist and make her walk obediently beside you when next you venture out."

And Miss Strang was not alone in this. Christabel Sullivan describes how she took with her a small thonged whip when a girl accompanied her into town. "I carried this in my hand for all to see. I wanted all to know that the girl was under my authority and subject to my discipline."

A similar practice was referred to by Jane Horrabin in the correspondence section of the Ladies Journal for March 1932. Writing of her Edwardian governess, she said, "If my brother had displayed a wilful spirit, unseemly in a twelve year old boy, she would, when walking out, take with her a short length of whippy rattan cane. Any hint of discontent or fractious behaviour on his part, and she made him hold out his hand like a small child for a half-dozen smarting cuts. And his shame was often compounded by her adding, 'And that is just a foretaste of what you will get with your knickers down once we get home, young man.' This was often said in the hearing of others, and the shame he felt surely went beyond blushing and visible embarrassment. "It was a fiery purging. But," she adds, "was usually both deserved and reformative."

We are probably shocked that children not only suffered such treatment at the hands of a governess but that in retrospect, in adult years, they regarded it as wholly justified. Today, most parents have lost sight of the truly creative power of shame. While there are still mothers who accept that baring a child for chastisement is necessary, this is usually done, not to shame, but as a means of intensifying the sting of a spanking. Rarely is shame seen as an essential means of discipline as it was with the grandmothers and governesses of the past. And the belief that children with pretensions to a maturity beyond their years should be made to submit to a ruthlessly shaming regime for their own good probably exists today only in those few enclaves committed to providing an upbringing in accordance with strict Biblical principles.

But if the cleansing and reformative power of corporal chastisement and disciplinary shaming is not discovered more widely, then children will continue to bring shame upon us all through their unbridled and headstrong behaviour.