The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-22
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Parents and Children

I throws d JnOuSand IanIaSI1C 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, he says, there will be
chance for parents and children to
/ be friends when they meet. AS it is
now there is a wall ten feet thick
/ between them that neither can break
| thru.
OF course the Shavian point of view
is always a humorously exaggerated
one, but it is true that between most
parents and children there is a wall
ten feet thick that they can neither
break thru nor climb over, and if
most fathers and mothers aid 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 conn
partnership between them impossible?
1t isn't a matter of lack of affec-
ton or neglect on the parents part,
because you see this want of comnan
ionship just as often in households
where the parents have sacrificed
themselves for their children ami
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 new
er so bitter as from the lips of par
ents who have literally worshiped
their offspring.
1t IS not matter of disparity of
age Father is on chummy terms with
half a dozen boys the age of his own
COZ -lan n IG- y
joke with the and tell them stories
and discuss with them every topic
from batting record to the tempta-
tions 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 sneak CT
it at the first opportunity.
1t isn't because mother is old that
daughter neverNtells her any of the
shy little secrets of her heart, and
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 a school girl crush. Nor is it be-
cause mother is so much older than
daughter that she cannot bring her
self to talk to daughter about the
things that every mother should tell
a girl mother can discuss the most
intimate problems of Womanhood
with every other girl except her own.
What, then. is this mysterious wall
made of that so tragically and ter
ribly separates parents and children?
1 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
superior being, you can't possibly pal
with one You haven't any tie of
human kinship with it," You haven't
the nerve to even expect one who has
always been perfect and never made
mistakes or had silly yearnings for
foolish 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
their children are that there is so little
companionship between them.
1t is a pathetic and a curious fact
that human egotism finds it's ultimate
expression in parenthood. The first
thing that fathers and mothers do
when child is born is to. explore the
poor little red countenance for trace
of their own ineaments, and they are
overjoyed when they find out that they
have wished on the unfortunate little
creature their own nose, or mouth, or
eyes, or chin, regardless of how ugly
these FEATURES may De.
Then they are determined TO doml-
nate their chllds lie, to mould Its
opinions, decide lts destlny' no natter
,i - l,NeI - - tta l., -. -
ta, ~ ar,a i,Ido1,1a,+ otbnr no
IL 80 +I1i1,1r - All and s+,,,,id ana
pie 10y eInnl.,. 80. ~ eattc,, ~,
poor IIla llaser' says tne daelisi VI
III va s,II - ,,1
.Il1o my ~. anu
Therafo,-a fa+bar assn111as tho atti-
81 81 o,a u1bo has aIIvavs hean a
,ool1a1 Of an +ba ,,irt11ae and who has
,,a11ar fo, an instant straved from the
straight and narrow path. He might
hoaSt To other xIo11ne men that in his
fine he has been one of the bows. but
he never comes down from his high
nIane with his own bow and tells him