Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1908-01-15
Most PatheticaIly Difficult
Problem of Motherhood

mere comes tlme In TIE life OF
woman when she confronts what to
her and her children is an actual
crisis in her motherhood, and upon it's
outcome depends the happiness of
herself and her associations with her
children thereafter, writes Louise D.
Mitchell. 1t IS that period in which
she faces the first compelling instance
OF the maturity of her child, which has
expressed itself IN the clashing Of
their wills in sCsne matter of authority
heretofore unquestioued.
1t has reached the point at last
where she is shocked into realization
that it is now question of mother
| and son, no longer that of mother and
child. It is one of the most pathet-
ically difficult problems of mother
hood, and every woman who faces it
unexpectedly-as most of them do
deserves the sympathy of all those
who can comprehend what it must
| mean to her. 1t is literally abdication.
She steps down from the position of
ruler into that of a familiar mingling
With those whom she has ruled-yet
it is, OF at least should be, surrender
with honor
/ The girl is always mora OF a woman
I than the boy is man. In fact. with
rare exceptions, the boy retains his
boyishness throughout his life, deep
hidden beneath a thousand cares AID
absorbing interests, yet forever crop
| ping Up to make him dependent upon
a on hn1 ic, M
| edy CT womanhood that from her child
| hood, when she deyotes her loving lit
| tie heart to the care of her doll, the
| shadow of her motherhood, with its
attendant sacrifices, should follow her
throughout her life.
/ Far beyond into his gray-haired ma
turfty the boy in the man viii feel
| the necessity for mother" in his
/ hours of deep anxiety, when the dis
/ interested sympathy CT woman is
the only thing that will soothe and
| understand his need; and when, alas,
the wife he has chosen falls short of
| this call Of the heart, the mother he
| instinctively Graves may be mother
| herself, but if not it will be sister, or
| some other woman, since it cannot be
wife. If girls were taught their re-
sponsibilities toward their brothers or
other young men, and were broad
enough to see what it might do for
themselves and them, there would be
fewer men-and brothers-go wrong
through their influence or lack of it.
1t is the instinct of boy to protect
his mother from physical danger or
mental anxieties and the wise woman
will foster this.
Courtesy begets courtesy, and as
you ''sow" this rare seed in the life
of your children, so shall you reap
rich harvest of delight Upon the
day of your "abdicatfon" you have no
longer the power to say do this or do
that" with the imperiousness that
most mothers address their children.
You are then face to face with men
or women who have the right to de-
mand of you the same considerable po-
likeness you would show the young
people CT your frfends.!-
The earliest born moral sense that
: we have is that of justice, and it is the
one most trampled on by friends and
foes alike. If you would stop a1d
question whether you would like sdcn
and such thing said OF done to you
: 1 think that fewer children would go
about with Iacerated feelings and burn
, ing resentment where they should
have known nothing but the delightful
harmony of mother who was their
sympathetic COMPANION. Sharer OF
+ their secrets, of their hopes and fears
, and the best fellow of the bunch
I'd like to write familiar quotation
thus, if Ella Wheeler Wilcox viii TO-,
/ give me:
r Laugh, and your boy laughs with you;
; Scold, and hen leave you alone.