Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1908-01-11
Most Pathetically Difficult
Problem of Motherhood

mere comes a time IN the 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 some matter of authority
heretofore unQuestioned.
1t has reached the point at last
where she is shocked into realization
that it is now a question of mother
and son, no longer that of mother and
child. 1t 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, or at least should be, surrender
with honor.
The girl is always more of a woman
| than the boy is a man. In fact, with
! rare exceptions, the boy retains his
| boyishneSs throughout his life, deep
| hidden beneath thousand cares and
! absorbing interests, yet forever crop
| ping up to make him dependent upon
] a woman's help. 1t is part of the trag-
| edy of womanhood that from her child
hood, when she devotes her loving lit
| tie heart to the care of her doll, the
! shadow of her motherhood, with it's
| attendant sacrifices, should follow her
| throughout her life.
| Far beyond into his gray-haired ma
4 turity the boy in the man will feel
| the necessity for mother" in his
| hours or deep anxiety, when the dis
| interested sympathy of a 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 1t 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, $50 shall you reap
rich harvest of delight. Upon the
day of your "abdication" you have nc
longer the power to say do this or dc
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 pc
likeness you would show the young
people of your friends-i
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 and
question whether you would like such
and such thing said or done to you
think that fewer children would &C
about with lacerated feelings and burn
ing resentment where they should
have known nothing but the delightful
harmony of a 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 will for
give me:
Laugh, and your boy laughs with you
Scold. and he'll leave you alone
/