The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-01-10
A LAY SERMON ON THE UNsELFIsHNEsS
OF MOTHERS.

OF late there have been written an
unusual number of stories, slightly
didactic in intention, and of essays
plainly moral, to the effect that the
lot of the mother with grown but un-
married daughters was a hard one.
The unsel6sh mother-and for the
purposes of argument it might be as
we'll to concede that this term en-
braces all mothers-is represented in
this literature as a much imposed
upon being, unless, indeed, she is a
plutocractic person. She washes the
dishes after tea parties which her
hospitable offspring give; she makes
the dresses in which they shine
abroad, wearing herself meantime
anything but distinguished looking
garments, and so on.
It ,fredueutlv. happens that traits
and disposition descend from parents
to their children. Therefore, it is not
an absolutely unknown thing that
the daughter of devoted mother
should have in her own makeup some
of the elements of unsel6shness. She
grows up sufficiently like her mother
not to be entirely self-centred. She
even has an affection for the woman
whose acts of service bring her into
such disrepute.
She grows up-though this is the
first place where the unsel6sh mother
balks. The unse16sh mother will
concede, when she has to, that her
daughter is thirty-fve or forty, but
the concession is merely verbal one.
The mother is in the habit of waiting
up for the young girls of her house
hold. She waits up as determinedly
for the elderly spinsters. Imagine
the feelings of woman of thirty odd
years who comes in from the theatre
and an after theatre supper party to
find her unselfish mother waiting for
her
The uhselfsh mother sits opposite
her daughters at breakfast and en-
treats them to eat the last slice of
toast and the last egg. There is no
scarcity of delicacies. But the I'm
selfish mother, in her eager desire to
forego some thing for the sake of her
children, leaves untouched her share
of the good things, and then presses
it upon those who have already had
all the good things they want. 1t
seems foreign to her conception of
her children to assume that, if there
were any shortage in the 1arder, they
would derive as much pleasure from
giving up to her as could possibly de-
rive from giving up to them. In
deed, her conception of her children
seems to be gained from the whimper-
ing stories and essays aforemention-
ed, rather than from acquaintance with
the children themselves.
The mother who never goes any
where while her daughter is constant
l. -9A-edd disa. =, the, mother who sits
in drab by the family lamp While her
daughter in rose color, is dining and
dancing and playgoing the mother
who stitches, stitches eternally upon
furbelows for her frivolous offspring
while her own garments grow nearer
and nearer the ragbag ideal; the
mother who lunches on cold bread
and Clipped beef while her dsughter
has specially prepared chop; the
mother whose aging eyes are deprived
of their need of sleep while they are
propped open for her daughters re-
turn from festivities-this mother is
chiefly "the baseless fabric of
dream which some didactic souls
have had concerning the selfshness
and brutality of the present genera
ton of daughters. And in so far as
she does exist, she is the beloved
bane of her daughters existence, the
dear thorn in their sides, whose va
carries, persisted in despite their RACES
and their labors, give them an ex-
ceedingly and undeservedly bad name
in the community. For no mother
loving and unsel6sh enough to care
to perform all these tolls for her chill
dren ever bore blindly selfish and
brutally unloving enough to accept
the sacrifices York Herald.