The Washington herald., 1918-01-24
DOROTHY DIx'S TALKS
oLD-FASHI0NED PARENTS AND
NEW-FASHIONED GIRLS.
By DOROTHY DIX.

prisoner, ana tnat tney nau seen
her making frantic appeals for help,
Investigation disclosed that the girls
mothers mind had become so affect
Cd by the many lurid stories she had
read and heard OF white slavery and
the dangers to which young girls are
exposed in q great city that she had
locked her daughter in q back room
and kept her there for over six
months in solitary confinement.
Now comes another tragic story OF
New Jersey father who shot his
seventeen-year-old daughter dead be-
cause she had disobeyed him and had
gone to some innocent place of amuse-
ment. He also had become obsessed
by the idea that the only way to
keep q girl safe is to keep her home,
right under his eye, away from all
other young people, and prevent her
from indulging In any Of the pleasures
that belong to her time Of life.
OF course these are exaggerated
cases showing the effect produced on
the minds Of morbid people by the
many warnings that pulpit and press
have given parents to take care OF
their daughters. II n q pity that In
order to make the general public take
ordinary precautions against any dan
ger you havs to scare the few tin1id
| individuals into mysteries, but there
seems no way to avoid Il
Il II regrettable that some parents
should have been turned into jailers
to Keep many parents from letting
their daughters run wild. And 1t Is a
terrible thing that because some sweet
faced, gray haired. motherly looking
woman have been the wolf dressed
up IN grandmA's cap and gown who
lured young girls to their doom, we
have had to teach girls to look with
suspicion upon all sweet faced. gray
haired, motherly old women, and to
call for the police instead OF flying
to the rescue OF such a one when she
appeared to grow faint and asked for
a strong young arm on which to Jean.
And It Is sadder than sad that be-
cause a small minority OF men are
Williams we must begin to teach girl
babies In their cradles that they must
be forever on their guard against all
men, thereby creating an occasional
man hater In order to save the many.
It's too bad, but what would you?
After all, life Is like the stage. You
hoNO " CAdeeCAalO CNCAy CAACCI " HCA
it over the footlights so that 1t will
grip the people, and make them sit
up and think.
The ideal is the golden mean be-
tween the two extremes. This Is al
ways difficult of realization, and
nowhere quite SO difficult to achieve
ment as in parenthood.
It takes almost a super intelligence
and sense OF Justice to know where
to draw the line between proper au-
thority and domestic tyranny, between
liberty and license, between laxness
and espionage in dealing with ones
| children. When shall one drive with
| loose rein and when with a curb?
How far shall one let ones children
go? How much right have they to
i decide things for themselves?
These are hard questions to answer
and they are particularly hard to an
/ swer when one is dealing with the
modern girl. The old fashioned girl
Of mothers and grandmother's time,
who was cage bred and expected to
live and die In a cage, could be made
to stay put.
She was utterly dependent on her
parents for food and raiment. She
knew nothing Of the outside world
and would have been as helpless in 1t
as q canary bird turned out into
blizzard. Therefore, II was easy to
enforce obedience from her and make
her accept her parents point Of view.
Nor did her parents have to worry
about the dangers that she encount-
cred. They were as negligible as
those Of a lamb that Is kept safe in
the fold.
But the modern girl is a different
pair Of sleeves. She is economically
Independent. At least millions of her
earn their own living. When she goes
forth to work In the morning she goes
to q world OF which her mother knows
as little as II 1t were on the other
side OF the globe instead OF Just down
town Every hour of the day she is
up against conditions, temptations,
dangers Of which her mother never
even heard. and which her mother
either ignores in her ignorance or ex-
aggerates into weird bogies through
her fears
1t Is utterly ridiculous to even talk
about dealing with the new fashioned
girl on the old fashioned platform.
When girl achieves financial indie
pendence on her own account she has
graduated out of the kindergarten
class and received her diploma in real
life She is no longer a baby to be
bidden to do this and that and sent to
PED without any supper IL she doesn't
obey orders.
II self-supporting girl obeys her
parents 1t is through affection and
respect, and not because she Is afraid
OF them or can't get along without
g.
they remember this and 60 verv
lightly on the domestic tyranny stnrr
In former times parents considered
that they had divine commission
from heaven to decide every act of
their children's lives, and particularly
OF their girl children. This theory also
becomes untenable in the face OF the
self-supporting girl. 1t is Joke even
10 contend that a girl is capable of
taking care Of herself the eight or ten
nours a day that she is away from
nome at work. and isn't capable of
taking care OF herself during her few
hours OF leisure, or that the girl who
mas intelligence and Judgment enough
TO hold down a good Job hasn't enough
lntelngence and good Judgment to pick
out her friends or to go to a place of
amusement alone with a young man.
Yer there are plenty of parents
VINO are trying to do the best by their
daughters and yet do not realize this.
They honestly think they are removing
temptation from their girls pathway
when they take away the girls pay
envelope that she will not spend its
contents on pretty clothes, and when
they refuse to let her 60 out to places
OF amusement in the evening or to
have young people come in to see her.
Girls didn't always have to be CAD
ding the streets, or going out to dances
and moving pictures and theaters In
my day." they say self-righteously.