The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-15
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Fathers Influence.

Scribing how mothers hands forms
the character of her children and how
they are guided thru life by the pre-
cepts they learned at her k-1ee-
Nobody says anything about faith
er's sacred influence. Forming her
children's characters and teaching
pears to be a job that father has I'M
loaded on mother. He washes his
hands of the affair. He just as much
expects her to see to it that they are
started out in life with clean prin-
ciples as with clean faces
1t is sad and disgraceful fact that
in the majority of ia miles the moth
er's influence is all potent and the
fathers influence is negligible, yet
when father chooses to use his influ-
ence over his children it is a hundred
times more effective than their
mothers.
The average American man has a
weird, lop-sided ideal of fatherhood.
He thinks that he does his full duty by
his children when he works himself to
death in order to provide them with
luxuries and indulgences. To do this
he has to hustle hard that he has
no time to get acquainted with them
or to esta blish any basis of communion
with them. He is far more intimate
| with his office boys than he is with his
own sons. He is far more confidential
with his stenographers than he is with
his own daughters.
He never takes a vacation with his
boys or goes off and rOughS it with
them, or has long talks with them
about the real things of life. He never
tells his girls in heart-to-he CONVEX
sations what his ideals are and the
kind of women he hopes they are
child's mental picture of its father is
| of a cash register that mother works
| for it's behoof and benefit. Simply
that and nothing more. Father has
no more influence over his children
than the neighbor across the way.
He leaves the rearing of the children
entirely in their mothers hands.
Mother decides every important ques-
ton in their lives from the kind of
patent baby food they shall imbibe in
the cradle to the careers they shall fol-
| low in wife. Mother dresses them as
she pleases. Mother decides what
| schools they shall go to, what friends
| they shall have; mother instills in
them her own ideas and theories of
| life without even a suggestion from
| father. with no protest from him ex-
| cept over the size of the bills
| The result is only too often that
| when man looks at his weak, worth
less and dissipated sons, and his vain
selfish, frivolous daughters. he thinks
that children are about the poorest
| investment in which a man can sink
the labor of lifetime
But the fault is his. The children
have far more right to reproach him
than he has right to reproach them.
| IL was his duty to make of them
| strong fine men and women and he
failed to do it. He turned the work
over to a hand that he knew to be
| incompetent.
He knew his wife had no Judgment
The wouldn't trust her to make a hum
dred dollar investment on her own
| initiative He knew she had no firm
ness. He had seen her change a hat
| a dozen times before starting to the
theater. He knew she had no fixed
| convictions. She had always been
blown about by every new fad and
| fancy that came along. He knew that
| she had no vision and had never
I been able to see where any act would
inevitably lead her. He knew that her
| gods were society, fashion and show.
And yet he turned over the rearing
| of the children to this incompetent. He
| let her set her seal upon them and
| then wondered that they turned out
as they did. 1t would have been a
| marvel if they had turned out any
OF course not all mothers are weak
and silly The majority of mothers,
| thank Sod, are fine and noble, and
they do the very best they can for
their children, and their influence is
always for good, but even the best
of mothers is not capable Of rearing
a family single handed.
! For one thing, her motherly ten
| derness makes her too weak in deal
ing with strong willed youngsters. For
another, her lack of worldly wisdom
and experience of life outside of the
home discredits her judgment to her
children. And above all, she lacks
the final authority that the hand that
| holds the purse Yields
| 1t is one of the most tragic things
on earth that mothers, thru their over
whelming love for their children, fos-
i ter the faults and weaknesses that are
their childreu's undoing. But 1t Is
true and if you will recall the men
! of YOUR acquaintance who are drunk
ards and loafers you will find that
they were brought up exclusively un-
der their mothers influence and had
fathers who were mere figure-heads
in the home.
O.. the other hand, il those families
where the fathers influence predoIni-
netes the children almost invariably
develop into good, useful men ana
women. Wherove- you see a man
playing with his children. teaching
them t pla- fair in their games and
TO he good sports that can take a
loss without whining: teaching them
self control, and holding them steady
and down to earth: teaching them
perseverance and grit, and n2t to give
up when the long hard Pol comes
and play turns suddenly into work
Installing il them in thousand subtle
WAYS courage, determination, honor
and honesty, why, you don't need to
ask what sort of men and women
those boys and girls are going to
. make.
| Somehow a mother can't teach just
those things to her children in the
same way that a father can. A
. mothers influence is softening and re-
. filming A fathers influence gives a
hardening and stiffening to the moral
fibre. 1t puts the iron of resistance
into a childs soul that it needs to
enable it to fight the stern battle OF
life.
Necessary as the fathers influences
, is on the boys character, 1t is equally
! important in developing girls
. character Just as cloSe association