The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-26
BY MARGARET E. sANGsTER.

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
 Copyright. 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles)
 During the years when. children are growing up, under the watchful care or father and mother, a great deal of dis criminations, must be used as to their associations, their daily reading and their amusements. To the observer who looks on from the outside and sometimes sees a good deal more or family life than the family itself mo- tices, nothing is more extraordinary than the fact that parents often know very little about their children. Each generation in a certain sense fights its own battles, solves it's own problems and has it's own atmosphere. The point of view of the father approaching mid dIe age Is so different from that of his boy of 16 or IS that the two have little in common and are not in sympathy one with the other.
 Parents make so much of authority during their children's earlier years that the children sometimes cease to trust them reserve their confidence and live their little lives in world alien to that of the adult. Even moth srs, who are the natural confidantes of their sons and daughters. do not ai- ways know very much about the inner lives of these young creatures who have the world before them. One of- ten hears a girl say, "I could not ask my mother about this or that she would not understand" A boy is very often much more influenced by the fel- low he meets at the corner or at the postoffice than by his own father. This is not because his father does not love him but simply because he and his father do not stand on the same plane; they are too far apart in years, pursuits and sympathy to speak the same Ian guage.
 Fathers fall into a habit of snub- ping their growing boys. They forget that they were boys themselves or they do the thing, so to speak. on prin- cipie, feeling that they are submitting their boys early to hardening process, which will make life easier for them by and by.
 Boys do furtively many things in which there would be little harm if they were done openly. For example, the unwise parent Eliminates decree that his son shall not play cards. The boy apparently obeys. Nevertheless. he is entirely familiar with knaves and trumps and aces and all the nomencla- ture of cards; he plays whist and euchre, and whatever other game there may be. but he plays it in the barn or away from home ,or in some house of which his father does not know the existence. When boys go wrong, nine times out of ten the reason is that they have been living a double life. They have been deceiving their parents in the ways open to boys. small ways. it is true, but nevertheless ways that lead downward Deceit furnishes a very insecure foundation for success in life. as it necessarily undermines good morals and lowers boys whole ideal If cards attract a lad, do not hedge them with a prohibition, but let him play openly at home. They will be less charming if not forbidden.
 The first necessity Is that parents and children should be mutually confi- dential and responsive. President Roosevelt has uttered many wise coun- sells to this nation. but no spoken word of his has been more potential than the example he has set of living with his children as fully as he can, shar-