The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-29
THE MOTHER OF TODAY.
Beside the Old Fashioned Mother She
shows to Advantage.

LONDON Lazy.
There are copious folios written about the
girl of the period, the up-to-date girl. and
the modern girl, but we do not often hear
anything about her mother; ana yet 1t
difference between her and the mother OF
the last generation. Et
The mother of long ago was much older
and more sedate. She sat a great deal by
the fire, and seldom walked out, except
for ceremonious. calls or necessary shop
ping. She usually wore galoshes when she
took the air, and little shawl of dainty
white or pink wool lay over her shoulders
as she sat writing long. letters to her absent
She made no end of "simples, and pomades
and liniments, and had remedy and recipe
proved of theaters, and balls and smoking,
and she was wild with terror when any of
to talk to men, other than the vicar and
the doctor, but had cronies of her own ilk
to whom she confided all her troubles She
carried her keys in a basket, and looked
well to the ways of her household. Her
best dress was rich black silk. which was
made and remade in 9, ,spatronly fashion
bits of lace. She wore a cap and parted
her hair in the middle. She was inexpressi-
bly, shocked when she heard of anything
like flirting going ON among the girls, and
laid down the most moral and stringent
axioms; yet she had been a fearful fiirt her
self, because. when sitting over cozy
fire in the cleaning, her heart expanded
and her tongue loosened by the inspiring in
fiuence of Christmas or a wedding she
would tell the most delicious little episodes
of the sweetest and quaintest love making,
in which she played the leading lady, long
before L saw your dear papa, girls" She
made a dear old lady, and as a grand
mother she was just perfection. On the
whole, though her views on some of the
equations and amusemelts of youth, her
extraordinary propensity for airing every
thing, and her yearning after flannel as a
first article of attire, made her somewhat
of a nuisance now and then, much as her
children all loved her.
The up-to-date mother is quite different.
To begin with, she is much younger-quite
young, in fact. She is infinitely younger
and better looking than her twenty-year-old
daughter. She may have reached thirty
FIVE but she never passes it. She wears far
more stylish and becoming clothes than her
girls, and enjoys balls, and parties, and
concerts more than they do. She is a bril-
liant talker; she has a horror of women
older than herself, and is inexpressibly
friends of whom she has regular cortege.
She goes everywhere and knows every
thing She never carries a key, and she
never obtrudes her housekeeping into no.
tice; vet her house to outward observa-
ton, is beautifully kept, her decorations ar
tistic. She gives charming little dinners,
the cookery thereof Her sons proud
of the mater" and confde in her, and tell
her things their father would have expired
rather than ne w3uia nave ion ms motner;
are quite happy to be her satellites and
maids of honor, and to follow meekly. in
her wake She is in fact very attractive,
and has a real good time of it. and, if fate
DEGREES her to be a grandmamma, it is
quite pretty and a huge joke to see the
fascinating youehtui gramnle WIN or the aT at
full and slSittish with him than his own
mamma is. and is delighted when people
say Fancy ; you or gran wIl1 aeree with ne
that these are some of the differences be-
tween the two mothers. Which of the two
is to be preferred, we leave 1t to our read
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