Of course such feelings, in themselves morbid, are not to be trusted.
Faced with a task like this we have only to ask ourselves not "Is it
hard?" but "Is it in truth my task?" If it is, we may be sure that we
shall be given strength to do it, provided only that we are sincere in
our willingness to do it and do not count our feelings at all.

It is preposterous to have such feelings, in the first place. They
are wholly the product of false teaching. For we have no right--as we
recognize when we stop to think about it in calmness of spirit, and
apart from our special difficult--to sit in scornful judgment upon
any of the laws of nature. When we find ourselves in rebellion against
them, what we have to do is to change the state of our minds, for
change the laws we cannot. If we women could inaugurate a gigantic
strike against the present method of bearing children--and I imagine
that millions would join such a strike if it held out any promise of
success!--we still could accomplish nothing. To fret ourselves into a
frazzle over it, is to accomplish less than nothing;--it is to enter
upon the pathway to destruction.

In teaching our children, then, we have first to conquer
ourselves--that painful, reiterated, primal necessity, which must
underlie all teaching. Having done so, we shall find our task easier
than we supposed. The children's own questions will lead us; and if we
simply make it a rule never to answer a question falsely no matter how
far it may probe, we shall find ourselves not only enlightening
but receiving enlightenment. For nothing is so sure an antidote to
morbidness as the unspoiled mind of a child. He looks at the facts
with such a calm, level gaze that proportions are restored to us as we
follow his look.