My parents knew only that they desired us to be like American children; and seeing how their neighbors gave their children boundless liberty, they turned us also loose, never doubting but that the American way was the best way.

In public deportment, in etiquette, in all matters of social intercourse, they had no standards to go by, seeing that America was not Polotzk.
In their bewilderment and uncertainty they needs must trust us children to learn from such models as the tenements afforded.

More than this, they must step down from their throne of parental authority, and take the law from their children's mouths; for they had no other means of finding out what was good American form.

The result was that laxity of domestic organization, that inversion of normal relations which makes for friction, and which sometimes ends in breaking up a family that was formerly united and happy.
This sad process of disintegration of home life may be observed in almost any immigrant family of our class and with our traditions and aspirations.

It is part of the process of Americanization; an upheaval preceding the state of repose.