Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-07
THE DAILY CHIT-CHAT.
By Ruth Cameron.

There is such a thing as raising the
standard of living wisely.
There is also such n thing as raising
the standard of living unwiselc- and
wrongly.
And / think the second course is the
one which a great many of our young
people of the present day and genera
ton are following.
Let me tell you a little concerning the
standards Of young woman who has
been married about three years. This
girls father is making an excellent in
come. Her husband probably receives
about one-half or third as much. And
yet in almost every case the standards
of living in the younger folks home are
are accustomed.
never paid over 311s cents for towels
Sometimes she has purchased them for
even less than that. But none OF the
| younger woman's towels costs her less
| than 80 cents. Her guest towels were
$3.50 a dozen and she has few to be
displayed to extra special guests for
which she paid dollar apiece.
i Her mother thinks 7o or 50 cents good
price to pay for sheets. Her daughter
tells with horror of one of her sirl
friends who didn't have single sheet
! in her trousseau worth more than %
cents. Her own bed linen ranged from a
dollar sheet up, and included embroid-
cred linen piliowcases and a pair OF
hemStitched linen sheets which she says
were a bargain at 81.
| Her mother is satisfied with table linen
! that costs sl.5O yard, for ordinary use.
The daughter wouldn't use anything but
putting cloth on her table that cost
less than four or five dollars. Her best
cloths cost two or three times that.
| Grapefruit for breakfast in the parental
home is considered luxury. In the
| household of the young folks it is looked
! upon as matter-of-coursc necessity.
| The father and mother put telephone
into their home only after long consld-
Grafton. The daughter looked upon a
telephone as an inevitable part of the
furnishings of her bridal apartment
When the mother has suit made she
goes to the old family tailor and pays
s15 for the making. Her daughter says
that Ibis lines are harsh" and pays an
uptown tailor twenty five.
These are a few typical comparisons
between the standards which content the
old folks and the standards which the
younger people think simply must be
lived up to.
And yet, as I said before, her father
has probably twice the income her hus-
band has.
What wonder, then. that the young peo-
contingency, some twenty 1--WE TedSoH,
saved a cent, and that the old folks had
to step forward and pay some of the
bills when baby came?
We see examples of such conditions
everywhere-that is. of young people who
are living up to their income from week
to week and have to be helped out by the
older folks every time some unforeseen
contingency, some '.twenty-first reason
demands little extra money, and l
think these exaggerated standards of liv-
ing, these inflated notions of what are
the necessities of life, are largely to
blame.
You often hear it said that young peo-
pie want to start where their fathers
and mothers leave OF. If only they'd
be content with that! But in most cases
they want to start where some friend
who has about twice the income they
have started. And that's where the
tragedy of unpaid bills and exceeded in
comes begins.
A more general habit of basing eX-
penditures on ones earnings, instead of
on what so-and-sO has or does, and
more general realization that life is
place where "all true joys don't hang on
material pegs are things sadly needed
by the great majority of the younger
generation.