The Washington herald., 1918-03-13

husbands and wives than they do to
her, and that their duties are more
to their husbands and wives than to
her.
To a mother her children are al
ways her children, and she feels that
she has a perfect right to boss them
and their homes, no matter how this
interferes with the pleasures and
habits OF her sons-in-law and daugh-
ters-in-law. Also mother has a DIFF
ferent code of conduct for the way her
children should treat those they
marry and the way those they marry
should treat her children.
Mother feels, for instance, that It
is perfectly outrageous for Johns
wife to blow in Johns hard earned
amusements, because John IL her son
and Johns wife is a mere daughter
in-law.
But she thinks Tom is a close-fsted
brute, IL he doesn't indulge Sally in
fine clothes. automobiles and trips, IL
Sally is her daughter and Tom a
mere son-in-law.
Likewise, in any family scrap that
takes place she backs her own to a
finish and can never see that the
party of the other part has the slight
est justice on his or her side.
The worst feature of the mother-in-
law problem Is that the old lady can
never remember that she Is a guest
on sufferance in another's house and
that it is up to her to pay for her
board by making herself agreeable.
To save her life she can't keep
her finger out Of the pie She can't
keep from interfering, or offering
unsolicited advice. II she is a pro-
hibitionist she reads son-in-law a
hOmily every time he takes a glass
of beer. II she objects to smoking
she goes shifting around the house,
and drives him to the back steps with
his cigarette.
II she was a thrifty housekeeper
she nags daughter-in-law to death
about using the best china every
day. II she objects to cards she
sulks whenever daughter-in-law
plays bridge. Everything that
daughter-in-law does she has to do
icism and "reminiscences Of the way
she used to do it.
This is inevitable. The woman
who has run her own house for
thirty, or forty years gets as ar
bitrary as the captain of a ship,
and she simply can't stand by and
see a younger officer in comman nd.
Especially when it's her sons ship,
bought with his good money, to
which she feels she has a right.
And daughter-in-law and son-in-
law are young and have not learned
patience and forbearance. They,
| too, like to boss their own ships and
do as they please without the in
Lterference of any ancient mariner
with an obsolete chart and prehis-
toric compasses. Hence the fight
for authority which is the crux of
the mother-in-law question.
The point of the whole matter is
that both are right. The young peo-
pie have a right to run their own
homes. live their own lives and
raise their own children in the way
they fancy.
And the old lady is right in doing
her own way and believing that
she's got the only reliable recipe
for making bread and bringing up
children that ever was and that the
only correct ideals are her own
| mid-Victorian ones, but the two
should not be brought into conflict
No man or woman has q right to
| inflict a mother-in-law on the hap
less creature he, or she marries.
And no woman with a grain of af-
feetion for her children should risk
their happiness by going to live with
them. Let her go to q hotel. or a
boarding house. or even an old la
dies home in preference. She will
be better off and so will they. The
I only way to settle the mother-in-
law question IL by mother-in-law
never living with her in-laws. .
Copyright, 1878, By the Wheeler Syndicate, Incl