The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-12-09
JEALOUSY CHIEF
MOTHER TRAGEDY.
SAYS DOROTHY DIX
Duty of Sacrifice Rests
More Upon Parent
Than Upon Child.
By DOROTHY DIX.


calloused from scrubbing office
floors, sobbed out to me, the other
day q story that was an epic of
mother love. of mother sacrifice, of
mother jealousy and mother agony.
She said that when she was a
girl she married a man who beat
and abused her, and deserted her
before her baby was born. Friend
less and penniless, she faced her
ordeal alone. and when she came
out Of the hospital she had only
her babe in her arms. and not .
cent in her pocket, or . human
being to turn to for help and COM
fort.
She got 4 poor, little room and
began making a living by taking
in washing. She determined that
her boy should have the advan-
tages Of education that she had
never had, and SO she kept him In
school long after other boys OF his
class went to work. The boy re-
paid her effort. He was always the
prize pupil in every school. He
won scholarships, and the mother
saw, in her vision of the future,
her son a rich and successful man,
herself sharing in his prosperity.
Then came the serpent into her
Eden. A pretty young girl moved
into the house in which the woman
and her son lived and the boy-he
is only 1S-was attracted to her as
youth is to youth. He wanted to
take her to a picture show now
and then. He wanted to play
about with her. and laugh, and gig
gle, and skylark with her. But the
mother went mad with jealousy.
She demanded that the boy spend
all of his evenings at home with
her. She told him that his duty
was to support her, and repay her
for all she had done for him, and
when he stayed out as late as 10
o'clock she went after him and
brought him home and shamed him
before the girl.
And the boy has left home. and
refuses to come back to his heart
broken mother.
The discerning will feel like
weeping over both sides Of this
pitiful little tragedy. 1t is so easy
to see the mothers point of view
and to realize how she feels that
nothing that her son could do for
her would more than repay her for
the devotion she has lavished upon
him, for the times that she has
gone hungry that he might be fed:
the rags she has worn that he
might be decently clothed; the days
she has bent above her washtubs;
the long nights she has spent upon
her knees scrubbing floors that he
might have the career OF a gentle
man. 1t maddens her that he can
forget these even for an instant
for the sake of girls pretty
young face.
And one understands the boys
side of the case, which is no con-
scious arguing of the case at all.
1t Is just that he Is young and has
the desires of youth, that he wants
to have a good time. and be with
other young people, and the girl is
pretty and jolly, and likes to laugh.
and is better company than his sad
and dreary and work worn old
mother.
You can't blame either one. It
Is natural that the mother should
feel as she does, and 1t Is newt
able that the boy should feel as he
does. Humanity will have to be
made over again before boy of Is
will prefer spending an evening
with his mother, discussing her
rheumatism, to an evening jazzing
with a girl of IS.
There Is nothing harder for par
ents than to realize that while
their children are all in all to
them, and sufficient to them, they
are never all in all to their chill
dren, or enough for their chill
dren. The parents are absorbed in
their children but their children
,have a million interests outside Of
their parents. An adored child
never bores its father or mother,
but mother and father bore the
child to death.
Wise parents realize this, and
never seek to monopolize their
children. They see to 1t that the
youngsters have plenty of COM
partnership of their own age, and
the pleasures that belong to their
time of life, and so their children
look upon them as friends, who are
first aid to their happiness, instead
of tyrants who are killjoys.
OF course when mother has
made a heroic sacrifice for her
child, it is but just that the child
should make a generous return for
1t, but even so, no parent has a
right to demand the sacrifice of
child's whole life. The ideal of
motherhood Is not a Shylock who
demands the last ounce of flesh in
payment Of the debt her child owes
her. 1t is selfishness. not love, that
makes her put her own claim for
happiness above her sons or
daughters, and that makes her
willing to doom him or her to
loveless and joyless life in order
that she may be taken care of.
After all, the duty of the child to
the parent is q small one as COM
pared with the duty OF the parent
to the child. Those who thrust the
burden Of life upon others owe it
to them to do all they can to make
the load as light as possible.
In any case where either the
child or the parent must be sacri-
need. IT IL the parent who should
volunteer to be the victim, because
the situation is of the parents own
making. There are not many of
us who would ever have been born
IL We had been consulted before-
hand in the matter.
There IL only one way in which
parents. and especially mothers, can
collect this debt that they consider
that their children owe them, and
that is by loving them SO much
that love wipes out the debt.
Whenever a mother loves her child
well enough to prefer its happiness
to her own, she ceases to count the
sacrifices she has made for II, and
she exercises the demon Of Jealousy
which, after all, makes the chief