An Extrordinary Woman

The Works Of Eva Vom Baur Hansl

By Eugenia Bartell

Eva Vom Baur Hansl, born in New York City at the end of the twentieth century, in 1898 to be exact, and who graduated from Barnard, became one of the most prominent nationwide advocates for the educated women of America.

Part of her forty-five year career in journalism stressed the importance of women's positions in the concurrent 1900s. Her writing exhibited the shifting roles, ideologies and attitudes of a changing 20th century. Writing for the NY Tribune, Times and Sun as well as the Ladies Home Journal and Harpers was the way in which she felt she could help women who were facing the modern woman's dilemma. "Wanting the best of all worlds for all women" became her mantra.

When Eva married Raleigh Hansl in 1920, and gave birth four years later to the first of their two children, her thoughts took a monumental turn of consideration. Recognizing her personal new situation and those of women who needed to work and had the right to work, but were facing economical and social difficulties, if they also had to maintain the dual job of motherhood, she explored and traveled a broader avenue in her continued pursuit to help women. And it was now through her personal needs that she could learn, grow and educate through her individual experiences as also a mother rather than the mere theories of an onlooker.

"A full-time mother on a part-time job, rather than a part-time mother on a full-time job" became her focus. Trading her full-time career for motherhood, she began to live the life of the women she studied and helped. For years her speeches, lectures, seminars, articles and even a radio series were devoted to that premise.

Talking with school principals and college professors who declared unanimously that the standards maintained in their institutions could be no higher than those of the homes and the communities from which their children come, reinforced her belief that "water cannot rise above its source."

In bringing up her own children she understood the need for parental education, especially since the newly found powers and joys of freedom from their traditional world, propelled many women so far from home that they seemed to have forgotten what is was they left behind. "What effect does that have upon a mother's role?" Eva pondered, and even more important, "What effect does it have on the child?"

About forty-five years ago Ladies Home Journal published the following timeless article by Eva Vom Baur Hansl. Below is part of it now.

THE CHILD SPEAKS TO ITS PARENTS

Give me food to nourish me,
Warmth and comforting
Security in your love: Things change so
quickly and appear so strange.
Let me enjoy my five senses.
Give me plenty of things to handle,
to feel, to smell, to touch, to hear; and
some that I may break.
Let me try out my new powers as my
body develops - to sit, to creep, stand,
walk, climb and jump when I get ready.
Don't mix up the natural needs of my
body with your emotions or mine.
Do not make me experience "too much,"
"too many," "too long."
Do not punish me for being angry when I
have been disappointed or deprived-
it's all bad enough as it is.
Speak to me with your heart and your
hands: I do not understand your words,
Surround me by kindly people.

GIVE ME PEACE IN WHICH TO GROW

Give me a corner in your home all my own.
Give me my share of attention and consideration.
Let me question; give me as honest an answer as you know.
Let me experiment; let me find out things for myself.
Let me stay sensitive to beauty.
Let me have fun out of little things, no
matter how foolish they may seem to you.
Encourage my efforts to do things even
when I do not do them very well.
Be patient with my little messes; I am learning!
Let me share responsibilities; measure
them out to me according to my size.
Let me learn to take my turn in a task, a game or a reward.
Watch me play and so let me tell you
how I am trying to work out the problems I am up against.
When you tell me to do this and that, tell me why.
Let me feel that I am wanted, that I am important to you.
Include me in the family plans when you can.
Be friendly and loyal to me, that I may
know how to be the same to others.
Prove to me that a promise is a promise,
Please don't keep me your baby when I want to feel grown up.
Don't make me afraid of losing your love!
Don't implant your own fears in me; my
own are difficult enough for me to handle.
Help me feel the difference between make believe and reality.
Help me not-to-act when I am angry;
but don't make me so afraid of being
angry that I lose my capacity to feel strongly.
Let me learn, bit by bit, to bear pain, to
look forward to pleasures that are coming.

I WANT TO BE GOOD

I am very busy living. I need lots of food
and sleep to keep me going.

If you would like a copy of the rest of this article please email me at genia631@yahoo.com

Back to Contents