The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-10
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid WomaD Writer.
Chicken-Picked Parents.-2.

81 should really enjoy taking care of
my own room and doing little things
about the house, but Martha does not
permit me to lift a finger. If L so
much as attempt to straighten a bu-
reau drawer, Martha takes the job
out of my hands, and reminds me that
| must not Cver-eXert myself. AS for
the housekeeping, she tells everybody
how she has taken the burden on her
own shoulders because she feels that
after a woman has wrestled with ser
wants for fifty years, as l have, and
raised a large family of children, that
she is entitled to rest in her old age.
so L am a guest in my own house
instead of being the queen of it, as
| was for SO long, and Martha never
guesses how empty the hands are that
held the reinS so long, now thai she,
has twitched them out of my grasp.
Il have always been an individual
list. L like independence. 1 like soli-
tude. 1 like to go off by myself.
like to meet new people and make rev
friends on my own initiative. Moth
ing would please me better than to
take a little trip now and then by my
self. But Martha will not hear of
such a thing. Whenever L go she
must go too, leading me by the hand,
as it were. She must pick out the
place where we go. She must select
the rooms. She must make all the ar
rangements. She must even introduce
me to such people as she esteems my
proper companions.
Il can't even go down town by my
self, because Martha is afraid that
1 will be run over by an automobile,
or get lost, or some other untoward
misfortune will happen to me. tho
heaven knows there are times when l
would risk any danger to get rid of
Martha's incessant society, even for
a couple of hours. For 1 don't mind
telling you that L get pretty well fed
up on Martha.
LAS for my having the liberty to
buy my own clothes and wear the sort
of hat and gown that pleases me in
stead of the kind that Martha likes.
why, l wouldn't dream of even think
ing of taking such liberty. I loathe
the old lady things that Martha makes
me buy, and would dearly love bit
of color, or some sort of gewgaws to
take my mind off of the fact that |
am supposed to have reached the time
of life when a woman has outlived
any vanity in her looks, but Martha
simply won't have it, and for the sake
of peace 1 gave up the fight long ago.
and meeFly accepted the livery of old
age in which Martha decks Sne out.
Martha also keeps me on diet. I
am not one of those poor tasteless
people who merely eat to live, and
who only ask of food that it shall be
nourishing. 1 have always been
connoisseur with an educated palate
with as much discrimination in what
1 ate as in the music 1 listened to or
the books I read. Indeed, the pleas
ures of the table have been one of the
joys of my life, and now that 1 am old,
1t is about the only pleasure whose de-
lights are left unimpaired to me.
But 1 can enjoy them no more in
peace because Martha has decided that
everything I like is Dad for me. It's
Mother, you must not touch that
sauce, it is too rich for you Mother,
you must not drink such strong cof-
fee Mother. you must not eat red
meat Mother, you must not have this
and Mother. you must not touch that
until I am exc sperated enough to
throw things at her.
And Martha isn't alone. Prac-
tically all the old people that I know
are treated in the same way by their
devoted children, who seem to think
that they are doing their duty when
they interfere with everything their
parents want to do. If they only knew
how wearing this is upon us old peo-
pie, they would surely grant us a lit
| tie personal liberty.
I'VE have only a little time to live
| anyway-why not let us do as we
| please for that brief hour? If we do
shorten our lives by eating the things
| we like, or if we get killed by going
about alone. what oil it? Believe me.
when you seventy, one day of
freedom is worth five years of mind
! ing your children.
| Nobody except those who have ex-
perienced it. know the pain of being
! chicken-pecked, nor how hard a good
. daughter may be to endure"
A~@> A