El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1916-04-29
q Grace Darling Talks to Girls %
No 9-The Mistakes Mothers
BIZ Grace Darling.
Whose TaIent and Beauty Have Woa
Her nm Enviable Place in the
Motion Picture World


Motion Picture World
4 GREAT big book could be writ
~ ten about the Mistakes Of Moth
n ers. and it would be the most pa
thetic book on earth, because the mis-
takes of mothers are nearly always
made through love.
It is because our mothers love us
girls so tenderly that they cannot bear
to see us deprived OF anything tnaL We
want that it is possible for them 70 go
for us, or to have us suffer any hd t5 ~
ships, that they raise US up to be lale
and selfish and useless and utterly tn-
fit to cope with the difficulties OF Ire.
Our mothers forget that sooner OF
later we are bound to be thrust out OF
the home nest, and then whether We
soar to the heaven of happiness OF
break our little necks falling down INTO
the depths of trouble is going TO depend
on whether we have been taught now
to use our wings. And there isn't going
to be any mother around to save US
from the bumps we are liable to get
You often hear a mother say 1 dom
want my daughter to have to work as
I Fave DONE" or Il don't want my
daughter to have to cook and sew ana
economic as have had to do"
So the mother does not teach her
daughter how to make her own clothes,
or to keep house, or to get the most
out of q dollar, as If the mere tact OF
the girls ignorance of practical Things
was sort Of magic spell that would
prevent her from ever needing to know
them. 1t isn't. OF course.
Not knowing how to sew or COOK
doesn't provide you automatically Win
good clothes or good food, and the re-
her daughter from having to work
make her have to work ten times
harder.
A TrnEfc Figure
The little bride who doesn't know
whether you order two legs of lamb or
one for dinner, and who is discovered
sitting in the kitchen in tears amidst
the wreck of an adamantine pie IS a
figure Of fun for the caricsturists ana
the jokesmith.
But in real life she is a tragis fig
ure, because she Is wasting her hus-
bands money, and she is working her.
self into a state of hysteria and ner-
vous prostration doing things incompe-
tently and laboriously that she should
have been taught how to do easily and
well.
Practically every young Woman'g
honeymoon is spoiled by her lack Of
knowledge of domestic affairs, and
she's got her own mother to blame Tor
it. It's just as mOuch a shame for any
girl to marry. not knowing how to run
house. as II is for a man to marry
who can't make enough money to pay
the house bills.
II were a man and found out that
had a wife unlOaded upon me who
didn't know how to cook or manage
think I'd be tempted to bundle her back
home and sue her mother for damages
to my digestion and pocketbook.
Another mistake our mothers make
is in cOddling US too much Instead of
teaching US to control our tempers, they
say we have such a nervous tempera-
ment" when we fly into tantrums.
Instead Of teaching us that other
people are Just as much entitled to their
rights as we are, they say we are so
sensitive and so finely strung" that We
must not be crossed Instead Of teach
ing us that we must give and take, they
give us everything.
The result is that they make US little
monsters Of egotism and selfishness,
and when We marry and find out that
our husbands don't subscribe to moth
er's theory about our artistic tempera-
ment and nerves. and have no idea OF
sacrificing themselves to US as mother
has done, the result is only too often a
divorce. The real correspondent in nine
divorces out Of ten Is mothers mis-
takes.
And II we go out into the world to
make our own living. we find that
mothers training is equally disastrous,
for to be babied and spoiled. and en-
couraged IN your whims doesn't fit you