The San Francisco call., 1913-09-09
The Extent
Of Parental
Authority
By DOROTHY DIX

iiDerty of action, and possibly his or
success in life in order TO crafty the
| whim or prejudice Of an old father
and mother?
/ have letter from young woman
who puts this question in very
pertinent fashion. My correspondent
writes that her parents are we'll to do,
even rich, country people, and that
she prepared herself to be milliner,
and is an expert hat trimmer capable
| of earning a good salary. Her father
and mother refuse, however, to let
| her go and take position in a shop
| where she could make the money to
| crafty her desires for good clothes
and innocent pleasures, and they also
refuse to provide her with the money
| for these luxuries They give her
nothing but her board in response for
! the work she does about the farm,
and she has to make the money for
the few clothes that she has by taking
in Ill paid sewing and trimming hats
for the neighboring farmers wives.
FOLLOW JUDGMENT
| This young woman wants to know
| If she would not be justified in as
| serting her own independence and
going away from home and accepting
one of the many offers she has had
to make her living in the way that
is most congenial to her and best
paid.
I To ttrNl, ~I.a kof cI,A fe
27 years old and has arrived at years
of discretion, il she il ever going to
| get there, / should say that she has
perfect right to follow her own judg-
ment and inclination, and as long as
she does only those things that are
true and honorable and of good report
to live her own life in her own way.
There is limit to the authority of
parents, and while the sacred obliga-
| tion to honor your father and your
mother never ceases. there is no rea-
son why the prospects of the young
should be blighted by blind yielding
to the tyranny Of the old just be-
cause they happen TO stand in a GER
tain relationship.
PARENTAL CONCEIT
When their children are very young
parents assume the attitude of ora
cles to them They are wiser than
| the babe, more capable OF deciding its
1 little problems than it is. and the
trouble is that this engenders in most
fathers and mothers conceit that
makes them believe to the end Of
time that they still are wiser than
1 their children and perfectly capable
still of settling every question that
comes up in their offsprings' lives.
Nothing in the world is farther
from the truth than this. Nature
plays strange pranks In families, and
many a dull. commonplace man and
woman beget children that are brill
liant mercurial restless, full of
strange talent, and no more like their
progenitors than champagne is like
dishwater.
How are such parents able to de-
eide anything for such children? How
are such parents to know what Is
best for such children? What folly
for such children to be bound down
by the narrowness and prejudice of
such parents, their ambitions thwart-
ed, their careers ruined because
stupid father and mother will not
consent to a gifted son or daughter
doing something which they never
wanted to do
/ Yet we all know men whose lives
have been ruined because when they
desired to be doctors or lawyers their
| fathers forced them behind grocery
counters. We have known girls that
God himself made actors. or singers,
or artists, whose genius was lost to
the world because their provincial
parents thought that woman's
sphere" was in the kitchen.
DANGEROUS MATRIMONY
We have all known miserable men
and women whose parents had sepa-
| rated them from the women and men
/ they loved. and married them to
| somebody they didn't love because
the father and mother were so GER
tain that they knew the kind of a
husband or q wife that Mary and
John needed better than Mary and
John knew themselves.
The truth is that there have been
so many changes In the conditions
OF life and the point of view In the
| last 20 years that the parent of to-
day Is absolutely untitled to decide
| the problems of life for the young
| man and woman of today. This is
particularly the case with women. be-
cause the whole economic and social
| position of woman has been revolu-
tionized since mother was girl.
| Things that were considered bad form
then are good form now. Sentiments
that were daring then are common
/ place conventions now. An amount of
| education that made q girl a blue
| stocking then renders one only mod
erately we'll informed now.
! CHANGE IN VIEWS
/ Mother will not consent to her
| gifted daughter going on the stage,
! where she could make fame and for
tune, because In mothers narrow
prejudice the stage and immortality
are synonymous terms, when the mod
ern view is that morality Is a matter
| OF morals and not of environment.
| Mother doesn't think that her daugh-
ter should go into business because
| when she was young the working
now it is just as much a matter of
course for a woman who needs money
to work as IT is for a man.
Mother thinks that her daughters
should marry TO please her, instead
OF gratifying their individual tastes
In husbands, and she forgets that 1t
is the daughters who are going to
have to live with the men, not she.
| All of this makes 1t utterly impos-
| sible for parents to Judge for their
children, and II is not right that the
old should lay restrictions on the
young. Therefore, 1t seems 10 me
that after girl or boy comes to
mans and woman's estate, they have
right TO decide things for them
| selves
| ...t.k,r<o- -oao