The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-11
IislS and Their Mothers


a GIRL is a queer creature The
"a day she tucks up at the back
of her head the long braid OF
hair which hitherto through her child
hood she has been wearing down her
back, that day she begins to look on
her mother as an old woman. The girl
may be as awkward and crude as many
young misses are at fifteen and even
seventeen. loose jointed Uniformed and
skinny. sometimes also even hollow
chested and stoop shouldered. The
mother at forty may be in the full
prime of mature womanly health and
beauty far handsomer than the crude.
undeveloped daughter of sixteen.
Nevertheless. the girl thinks her
mother ought to slide into the back
ground and let the girl be ''it'' hence
forth.
The mother would be a great fool
who would consent to be shunted of
the track by her green, callow daugh-
ter of sixteen or eighteen. 1 know q
young lady of forty who has a mother
of sixty. The mother is lively, very
active and has bright, attractive face
framed in wavy gray hair. To tell you
a secret, she is really handsomer than
her daughter. even at sixty. She is an
intelligent. intellectual woman. quite
up to date, warmly interested in all
new woman movements. She likes So
ciety and likes to look pretty quite as
well as she ever did. Why shouldn't
she? Heaven help the woman of any
age who does not wish to present q
pleasing appearance This mother Of
sixty was getting a new hat. She
fused considerably trying to get enc
| that was becoming, which was credit
to her. But the daughter the young
lady of forty. exclaimed impatiently:
Mother. what do you care how you
| look, at your age2"
| 1t was a brutal remark and it wound
ed the old-young mother to the soul.
This old-young mother is the type of
perhaps a million women. They feel
in their bones and in their hearts as
young as they ever did. They know
that science and sanitation are pro-
! longing youth and showing off old age
farther and farther. They would rather
die than give up active interest in life,
yet their daughters, neighbors-even
their doctors-are doing their utmost
to bury these spry, healthy danes
thirty years before they are actually
of forty confided to me a grievance
| against her doctor. She met with an
accident some time ago and broke a
rib surgeon set it, she was careful
of herself, she willed to recover quick
ly and very soon she was as good as
new. The physician congratulated her.
AT your age your bones are brittle and
do not heal so quickly"
Brittle bones! And madam had re-
covered from the hurt more rapidly
than many persons half her age could
have done. Yet another grievance mad
am had. She was attacked with a
slight indigestion and went to the same
doctor for a prescription. Anybody
may have an indigestion, but this doc
tor said, first thing;
AT your age you must expect to
have stomach trouble"
The lady never returned to that ply
stefan and never will do so. IF must
have my age flung in my teeth every
time I need physician I'll never call
another one" she declares.
And indeed physicians are to blame
A very evident part of their mission
is to brace their patients minds up and
fill them with courage and cheerful
ness. The more they can do this the