The Washington herald., 1917-08-06
Cind ella and Her Mama
BY DOROTHY DIX.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

The same mail brings me two
letters showing different angles of
the same subject.
In one a girl asks: Should a
girl who has worked hard all day
in a store and who turns over most
of the money she makes to her
mother, be expected TO wash the
dishes and help with the housework
at night after she gets homer
In the other letter a mother says:
What shall do about my daught-
er who Is employed as a stenogra-
pher in an office all day. and who
thinks that because she gives me
ten dollars a week to help run the
house on that she should be treated
like a lady boarder ana not help
with the housework at all? She
thinks that all she ought to do of
an evening is TO amuse herself, go
ing to the movies or to see some
of her friends or having her
friends come to see her."
The problem of the working girl
and her mother is one OF the COM
plications in domestic life that is
causing much friction in the fam
lily circle, because it is SO new that
we have not had time yet for either
parents or children to adjust them
selves to it.
With parents the old idea still
holds that prevailed when they
were young-that it is a girls duty
to help mother with the housework
and the sewing and the care of the
younger children, and to make her
self generally useful in fetching
and carrying. This was a perfectly
good code of conduct as long as the
girl was a dependent supported by
her parents. In helping mother
with the housework she earned her
board and keep.
But t,e business girl who has
become money Garner and who
contributes her quota of cash
towards the upkeep OF the house
hold is in an entirely different
status. If she pays in good hard
money what is the equivalent of
her board. she is a boarder just as
much as any stranger would be and
is entitled to be treated on the
same plane. Whatever she does
towards helping her mother Is a
performance of a duty.
Mothers are often singularly un-
just in the way in which they
treat their daughters who work
outside Of the home. No mother
would expect her son to clear up
the table after dinner, or do the
chores she had left undone, or
put in the evening nursing the
baby. If by any chance a mother
did have a boy who would do such
things for her she would chant his
praises to high Heaven and never
be done telling what a paragon of
son he was.
Yet she expects her daughter to
come home from work and do all of
these things, and If the girl rebels
mother considers her a most unduti-
full, cold-hearted and selfish girl, and
complains to the neighbors about how
her Mamie treats her. Yet IL either
son or daughter is going to be bur-
dened with domestic labor on top of
| hard days work in office or store,
goodness knows it should be the boy.
He's ply sically ten times as strong
and better able to do it.
To the everlasting honor and credit
of the working girl 1t must be said
that she is generosity itself and help
fulness personifled when it comes to
her own home. The majority of busi-
ness girls turn over their pay en-
velopes to their mothers and get out
Of their hard labor only what their
mothers choose to give them.
Go into any family where the girls
work and you will see how unselfishly
they spend their money. The fami-
lies move to a decent neighborhood.
The food is better. There are nice
pieces of furniture The younger chill
dren are being kept longer at school
so that they may have a better
chance than the older girls had. The
girls have spent their earnings on
their families instead OF in saloons as
the boys have.
Mother isn't satisfied, however,
neither Is father, because they have
still somehow got it In the backs of
their heads that a girl ought to do
housework no matter what else she
does.
OF course IL the mother is an invalid