[The Mental Health Film Board Series, Emotions of Every Day Living] [No. 5, The Puerto Rico Department of Health presents Roots of Happiness, copyright MCMLIII by M.H.F.B., Inc.] [Produced by Sun Dial Films, Inc.] [Mental Health Film Board: K. Appel, M.D., T.A.C. Rennie, M.D., L. Baumgartner, M.D. H.P. Rome, M.D., C. Binger, M.D., L. Saul, M.D. J.M. Bobbitt, Ph.D., E.D. Swann, M.R. Kaufman, M.D. H.I. Weinstock, M.D., R.T. Morse, M.D.,A. Jacoby, Exec. Sec.] [Photographed by Joseph Brun, Edited by Dayton Wood, Narrated by Thomas Chalmers Psychiatric Consultant Viola W. Bernard, M.D., Commissioner of Health of Puerto Rico, Juan A. Pons, M.D.] [Produced under the Personal Supervision of Samuel A. Datlowe, Written by William S. Resnick, Directed by Henwar Rodakiewicz] [Music, children milling about] [Narrator:] Run, Juanito, run. It is midday, and you have important business. It is midday. School is out. It is a time for refreshments, for jokes and laughter. It is a time for quietness, for pleasant games and gentle amusements. It is a fine day, and school is out. It is middday, Juanito, and you have had your lunch, but your father is hungry. It is for this reason you run, leaving behind the games, the amusements. Run now for the food your mother has prepared,that your father also may eat, and rest and refresh himself. This is the story of Juanito and his father Juan Tomas García, his mother María, his sister Petra, his little brother Jesus, and the baby Conchita. This is the story of a part of the United States,the island of Puerto Rico... the story of the people who live on that island. This is a land where many live by farming,where a man's living comes from tobacco, or coffee, or citrus or sugar. Whatever the crop, the work is hard. The sun is hot. [Music] The work is hard. The land is poor. It is difficult for a man to earn a living. [Music] [Whistle blowing] This is the story of how people are: how they act with each other, how they are happy and contented, or miserable and afraid, the problems they have. The island, the land itself, the poverty on the land, have much to do with the nature of a man, a woman, a child. But the nature of people, the way they are, grows out of other things, too. It grows out of the feelings a man has, the way he feels toward the men he works with, toward his wife, his children. This is a story of some of those feelings that men and women have, how those feelings affect the children, how they help to mold the way a child grows, the way he develops into a man, the kind of man he will be. It is also the story of children and how they feel,and what the feelings of a child may do to the man or woman the child will grow into. [Music] A child learns to be a man by playing, by imitating in his play the things men do, the way grown-ups act. They pretend to be men because it makes them feel good inside. It makes them feel more like the grown-ups they admire most. They show off as if to say, "See what a man I am going to be." And this is good, because it is in this way that a child learns to be a man, but sometimes without knowing any better,the child imitates only the bragging, unhappy part of a man. [Man 1:] Qué macho! [Narrator:] "What a man." But is that being a man? A real man? Sometimes a boy never becomes a man, because he never stops pretending, but not every boy must just show off. Juanito can play at being man by sitting quietly and enjoying the company of his father, Tomas. Every man wants his son to grow up to be a true man and his daughter to marry a true man, but who knows if this will happen? Too often the boy will become a turkey, a peacock, a fool, and the girl who loves such a man may become a disappointed, unhappy wife. But it is possible to grow a true man, just as it is possible to grow a seedling into a fine tree. So a young boy can be cultivated and grown into a full man. A child grows much as a tree grows. Children and trees alike grow for many years,during which they gradually realize the promise of their nature, but they need to be nourished and fed, cultivated and protected, in order to reach their full growth. It is true that trees may grow to their full growth, to maturity without care, but with the wild trees, many young ones are crowded out, never reaching their full growth. Others rot and die before their time. And so it is with children. They will have a better chance to flourish, all of them, if they have room to grow and are cared for and loved, especially when they are small. Like a tree, a small child needs a friendly, congenial climate. A climate which comes for the child mainly from the warmth of the parents' love for each other, but even the older children flourish in such a climate. A child needs deep roots, firmly planted in a strong feeling of family. Such a child grown to manhood or womanhood is better able to face the storms and droughts of adult life. But let us see how our man can grow his trees and his children, what a man and his wife can do and be, to help their children or their trees best fulfill their own nature. When Juan Tomas plants trees, he picks the best soil he can find. The man and his wife are themselves the earthfrom which their children grow, but this earth is made up of more than just the bodies of the parents. There are other things in it, difficult to see, with which we nourish our children. There is an inner strength and dignity and gentleness that can flow out from a woman who is happy and content with her husband. With such a quality in her, a woman can love children, all children, more warmly, more freely. [Singing in Spanish] The children who raised in an atmosphere in which there is love flourish in a fortified way. [Singing in Spanish continues] There is the respect that a man may have for himself. This too can fortify those around him. For when a man truly respects himself, when he feels deep inside without having to think about it, "I am what I am, no better and no worse, and I find it good." Such a man sees the true value in each person around him and accepts it as good, and because such a man and how he feels has a strong influence in his house, each person in it, even the very little one, feels also that he is of some value and importance. All of them can feel deep inside without having to think about it, "I am what I am, and I find it good, because my father finds it good." The man who understands trees or children can be firm, but he can also be patient and gentle. When a young child is old enough to dig holes,it is useless for a father to get angry and say, "Don't dig." He would not say to a tree, "Don't grow." A wise parent understands that playing is part of the growing of a child. Part of the business of learning how to be a man. Young trees and young children will need careful attention for a long time. A wise man never plants more trees than he can care for. Fewer trees well-spaced, properly cultivated, will grow better than many trees planted too close together. It is a foolish man who brags, look how many trees I have planted, forgetting he may not be able to care for them properly, forgetting how much water young trees need. [Music] The care of boys and girls continues even when they are almost fully grown. It is a different kind of care when the child is older, the kind of care that can help a girl like Petra in her effort to think and feel and act by herself more grown-up. One way young children learn to be grown up is by imitating in their play the things grownups do. The older ones learn in the same way, but what they do is not so much imitating, not so much play. It comes very close to living the way grown-ups do. At this age, boys often feel that they have to showthey're really men already, proving to themselves, to the girls, and to other boys that they've already come to manhood. For the girls too, this is a time of testing and proving. Every teenage girl likes to flirt because it makes her feel more of a woman. Sometimes this proving of manhood isthe boy mearly showing off with all sorts of flattery. A girl can flirt, but still know the boy is not saying true things. She does not have to go with just any man who wants her. She can know when it is time to say, "You are not yet a man, my friend. You only think you are." But not everyone can be so lucky as to understand these things. If there is no happiness in the home, if there is too little love and understanding and respect, then a young girl or a young man may leap impulsively into marriage with anyone, desiring only to escape the misery of the parents' home, to grasp for pleasure, to feel important. Such a marriage born out of desperation, made without thought, can doom the young man and woman to a life of unhappiness. [Music] The tree cannot have deep roots in a hard, unfriendly soil. A child cannot have healthy roots in a house full of anger. Sometimes children retreat from anger into themselves, into a blind, hopeless apathy. Such a child cannot flourish. Sometimes children can build a refuge of warmth and love for themselves that will protect them from the anger in such a house. But a child must do something to escape anger. He cannot live with it. It hurts too much, and sometimes he will defend himself from anger with more anger, with defiance. For some men, turning an angry face to the worldis a way of feeling important. Neither for his son nor for himself can such a one be a true man. There has not always been anger and hatred in this house. Constant disappointments come because each expect from the other more than he or she can give. Too many children, too much fighting, too much anger have made of this woman a nagging, bitter wife, and of the husband a selfish bully. This is not just one of the little squabbles of everyday married life. This twisted, crooked kind of anger is bad for a man, bad for a woman, bad for children. And the children in such a home may try to escape the anger, perhaps before they are old enough, by doing just what their parents did: marrying in haste without thought, without understanding, without love. But even in a home in which there are love and understanding, there can be serious troubles. A man who desires his child to grow straight must understand that each new step toward manhood must be encouraged, but this is sometimes difficult, especially when the new things the child has learned outside the home are unfamiliar to the parents. It was just such a new step when Juanito brought home two rabbits one day. His father was full of doubts: "Who will eat rabbits? Why raise animals that are good for nothing?' It is hard for a man who has never eaten rabbitto have his son tell him that they are good to eat. It is hard for a man to accept learning new things from his son. But the boy is very stubborn. He acts as if he were the man of the house. The boy says he learned about rabbits in school,that they are good to eat and cheap, and easy to raise, and besides, he will take care of them all by himself. It is hard for a man to let his son win an argument. It is hard, but a man must do it sometimes. He must let the child take new steps when he is ready. That makes him even more of a man. No one would think of preventing a tree from growing. Neither should one prevent a child from growing. [Music] The physical growth of people and of trees is reached one day, but there is another kind of growth of people that need not stop. For there is possible in the hearts and minds of men and women, a growth in experience, in understanding, in maturity. [Music] To raise a real man, one should be a real man,so strong in the feeling of his own worth that he does not pretend to be something he is not. He can be a good son to his parents because he does not have to prove that he is a man. They know it. He can be gentle with his children. They too know he is a man. He has knowledge of himself and respect for himself. For this reason, he does not have to be a bully or a braggart to make himself feel content. This is what makes a true man, and it is possible to help a child grow into a true man or the wife of a true man, and it is possible for the young people to understand how the children they will someday have, may also be helped and cultivated and loved, so that they too will be true men and the wives of true men. [Music] In such a home, children can have more patience and understanding towards each other, for they have learned that along with the pleasures of love, there also should be the patience of love, the consideration of love, the understanding of love. They know that all these things go into making a true man. They know it because they see it in their daily lives at home. They know it because they see it in the way the grown-ups act and feel toward each other. In the way their parents act and feel with them. [Music] This man has planted well and cultivated well. His trees and his children will be able to lead stronger and happier and more useful lives because of the care he and his wife have given them. This is a story of people and how they are with each other. The story of a family, what being in such a family can mean to each person in it. May there be peace and honor and happiness for them all in the years to come. [Music] [THE END Endorsed by the National Association for Mental Health and the National Institute of Mental Health of the Public Health Service]