The Oklahoma City times. [volume] (Oklahoma City, Okla.) 1908-1984, 1918-01-14
BY DOROTHY DIX.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writer,

The worlds Highest faid woman
Writer.
WYE HEAR great deal abou,
w mothers sacred influence Poet
w ~ song and story are mainly
devoted to describing how mother 5
hand forms the character OF her chill
dren and how they are guided through
lie by the precep,s they learned at
her knee
Nobody says anything about fathers
sacred influence. Forming her chll-
dren's characters and teaching them a
good working moral code appears to
he a Job that father has unloaded on
mother. He washes his hands OF the
affair. He Just as much expects her 10
see to Il that they are started out in
life with clean principles as with clean
faces.
Father Can Be Influential.
II is sad and dsgraceful fact that
IN the majority OF families the moth
er's influence is all potent and the
fathers influence is negligible, yet
when father chooses TO use his influ-
encc over his children II is a hundred
times more effective than their moth
et'S.
The average American man has a
weird, lop-Sidcd ideal Of fatherhood lie
thinks that he does his full duty by his
children when he works himself to
death in order to provide them with
lukuries and indulgences. To do this
h, has to hustle so hard that he has
no tame 10 get acquainted with them or
TO establish 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 conf
Dental with his stenosraphers than ne
is with his own daughters.
LIE NEVER takes q vacation with
~ his boys or goes off and roughs Il
with them, or has long talks with them
about the real things Of life. He never
tells his girls in heart-to-hesrt con-
versations what his ideals are and the
kind OF women he hopes they are going
10 be. No. The American child's men
tai picture OF dts father is Of cash
register that mother works for its be
hooi and benefit Simply that and moth
ing more. Father has no more intlu-
ence over his children than the neigh
Dor across the way
Leaves II to Mother.
He leaves the raising Of the children
entirely in their mothers hands. Moth
er decides every important question in
their lives from the kind OF patent
baby food they shall imbibe In the
cradle TO the careers the. shall follow
in life. Mother dresses them as she
pleases. Mother decides what schools
they shall 80 to, yhat friends they shall
have; mother irNills in them her own
ideas and theories Of life without even
n suggestion from father, with no
protest from him except over the size
OF the bills.
The result is only too often that when
man looks at his weak, worthless
and dissipated sons, and his vain, sell.
ish, frivolous daughters, he thinks that
children are about the poorest invest
mcnt in which man can sink the Ia
Dor OF life time.
Fault Is His.
But the fault is his, The children
have far more right to reproach him
than he has a right TO reproach them.
II 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 wifi had no judgment
He wouldn't trust her to hake hun
dred dollar investment on her own ini-
tiative He knew she had no firmneSs
he had seen her change a hat a dozen
times before starting to the theater He
knew she had no fixed convictions. ShC
had always been blown about by every
new fad and fancy that came along
lie knew that she had no vision and
had never been able to see where any
act would inevitably lead her. IA
knew that her gods were society, fash
ion and show.
A Nd YET he turned over the rearins
"A OF the children to this incompetent
He LEI her Set her seal unon them an,