The Washington herald., 1917-11-21
DOROTHY DIX'S TALKS
PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

throws LOCO fantastic lights upon
the relationship between parents and
children, George Bernard Shaw makes
the father in the play declare that the
time will come when no child will
know who its parents are, and no
parents will know their own children.
Then, ne says, there will be a chance
for parents and children to be friends
when they meet AS 1t is now there
Is a wall ten feet thick between them
that neither can break through.
OF course the Shavian point OF view
Is always a humorously exaggerated
one, but 1t is true that between most
parents and children there is a wall
ten feet thick that they can neither
break through nor climb over, and If
most fathers and mothers and chill
dren would tell the truth. they would
admit that there is nobody else on
earth with whom they feel so little
acquainted as with those who are
flesh of their flesh and bone of their
bone.
What Is this bar that so tragically
separates parents and children and SO
| often makes any real intimacy or
companionship between them impos-
sible?
1t isn't a matter of lack OF affection
or Of neglect on the parents part,
because you see this want of COM
panionship just as often in house
holds where the parents have sacri-
feed themselves for their children
and slaved for them as you do in the
households where the children have
been brought up by nurses and gov
ernesses and tutors. Indeed, the wall
my children never tell me anything.
am not in their confidence" Is never
so bitter as from the lips Of parents
who have literally worshipped their
offspring.
1t is not a matter of disparity of
age. Father is on chummy terms
with half dozen boys the age Of his
own son who are in his Office. He
can joke with them and tell them
stories and discuss with them every
topic from a batting record to the
temptations that lie in wait for every
young man. But when he is left alone
for half an hour with his own boy
they haven't a word to say to each
other, and are embarrassed and i'll at
ease. and one or the other makes a
sneak OF 1t at the first opportunity.
1t isn't because mother Is old that
daughter never tells her any Of the
oAJ hbIiS SSCTelS OIL neT neart, ana
what the boy who brought her home
from the dancing class said to her or
she said to him. She babbles these
| condolences fast enough to some other
woman, mothers age, on whom she
has school girl crush. Nor is it
because mother is so much older than
daughter that she cannot bring her
| sef to talk to daughter about the
things that every mother should tell a
girl Mother can discuss the most IN
innate problems of womanhood with
every other girl except her own.
What, then, Is this mysterious wall
made OF that so tragically and ter
rioly separates parents and children?
think that it is made of the adaman-
tine, colossal self-conceit of parents.
The vanity Of parents makes them
pose before their children as oracles
and little tin gods, and while you may
reverence and even abstractly love a
superior being, you can't possibly pal
with one. You haven't any tie of hu-
man kinship with it. You haven't the
nerve to even expect one who has al
ways been perfect and never made
mistakes or had silly yearnings for
toolish things to sympathize with your
own faults and weaknesses
1t Is because parents put themselves
up on self-erected pedestals instead Of
staying down on the ground where
thelr children are that there is so lit
tie companionship between them.
It is a pathetic and a curious fact
that human egotism finds its ultimate
expression in parenthood. The first
thing that fathers and mothers do
when a child is born is to explore the
poor little red countenance for a ira -e
or their own hneaments, and they are
over1oyed when they find out that
they have wished on the unfortunate
little creature their own nose, or
mouth. or eyes, or chin,> regardless Of
now ugly these features NAV be,
Then they are determined to domi-
nate their child's life, to mould its
opinions, decide its destiny, no mat
ter even II their own lives have been
failures that showed that they lacked
intelligence rnd judgment. Other peo-
pie may think me dull and stupid and
a poor manager. says the father or
mother inwardly. but am determined
/ that my chilli shall admire me and
reverence me as an oracle.
Therefore father assumes the atti-
tude OF one who has always been q
model or all the virtues, and who has
never for an instant strayed from the
strait and narrow path. He might
roast to other young men that in his
ame he has been one of the boys, out
ne never comss down from his fiph
Iiane with his own boy and tells him
tnat he, too. hae made a fool of him
SELF many q duie over q pretty face.
and drunk too much. and losG money
that he coufil't AFFORD in p.,ker
glrne.