The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-28
Dorothy Dix Talks
The Mother Love That Curses-2.


And the curious thing about these
mothers is that they account it unto
themselves for righteousness that they
love their children SO much that they
DO not correct their faults, or teach
them any self-control, instead of
realizing that they are the greatest
sinners on earth, and are accessory to
nine-tenths of the crimes and misery
in the world.
For into the mothers hands are
given the plastic souls of her children.
She it is who forms and fashions them
and turns them into the kind of men
or women who bless or curse the
world.
There is no woman SO dull that she
does not know this, and that before a
child is ten years old his mother had
practically settled his fate, and, know
ing this how any mother can love her
child little enough not to at least try to
safeguard its future, is something that
passes all comprehension.
A woman knows, for instance. that
temper probably wrecks more lives
than any other one cause. 1t is IN
bridled temper that makes men slay in
anger. 1t is uncontrolled temper that
makes thousands upon thousands of
men and women of ability failures.
They cannot get along with their fell
low workmen or they take offence and
chuck up their jobs at the very
moment of success. 1t is temper that
wrecks homes and sends discordant
men and women to thefdivorce court.
Yet instead of conQuering their chill
dren'S temperS and teaching them self
control, the great majority of mothers
humor them in their tantrums. They
haven't the nerve to stand behind the
Child and force it to fight its particu-
lar devil and get the best of it,
And if a child is indolent and lazy,
mother loves it too we'll to hold an
iron hand on it, and force it to work
until it forms the unbeatable habit
of industry. Yet mother knows where
loafers end. All about her she can see
the seedy, shabby men and women
who were born too tired to work, and
who have drifted thru the world
sponging a living on others. She
knows in what contempt they are
held, and yet she lets the maudlin
emotion she calls mother love" doom
her own child to that fate.
I had to work when I was a child,
so 1 determined my children should
never have anything to do but play
Il had very few indulgences when 1
was child, so 1 made up my mind
that my children should have every
thing they want 'I was made to
obey when 1 was a child, so 1 have
never subjected my children to any
discipline.
These are things that you hear
women continually say, and you
wonder that they have not intelli-
gence enough to see that everything
they are, they were made by the very
training they got in their youth.
For we develop strength of char
acter just as we do bodily strength, by
exercise. 1t is fighting hardships that
makes us strong, not weakly sue
cumbing to every temptation. There
fore, to try to protect children against
every difficulty is a crime against
them, and to try to remove every
thorn out of their path is to set their
feet on the road that leads to perdi-
ton
That is what weak mother love does,
and there is no misfortune that can
happen to a child equal to having a
Stacker mother who teaches him or
her to be a Stacker.