The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-11-24
Dorothy Dix Talks

By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer,

The Mexicans have a proverb that
says: strangers bread makes polite
children"
Every father and mother have had
occasion to observe this interesting So
ciaI phenomenon, and to marvel at
how much better their offspring be-
have away from home than they do
at home. Children who are little
hoodlums under their own roof are
angels and cherubs under neighbours.
Mother has reproved little Mary a mill
lion times about the way she holds
her fork and spots the table cloth,
without. apparently, producing any re-
suits, but when little Mary goes visit
ing her table manners are those of a
finishing school for fashionable young
ladies.
AT home little Johnny's hat is glued
to his head SO firmly that ten thou
sand reproofs have not sufficed to re-
move it when he enters a room, and
his general demeanor in the family
circle is that of wild Indian on the
Warpath, but when little Johnny goes
off on a visit to Aunt Sallie she writes
back about. what a perfect little gem
tlenan he is, and how he is being
hated>Jby all the other little boys in
the community because their mothers
are holding him up as model for
them to copy.
Whereat parents marvel. Tney
dren seem to shed their irritability,
their surliness, their accommodating
shirt. and their bad manners as soon
as they get away from home. Yet the
explanation is perfectly simple. me
children have escaped from the eter-
nal. and irritating paternal nagglng.
They are in a different atmosphere
where they are soothed instead OF
riIed. They are among people who are
looking for their virtues instead or
being on the watch tower to pounce
on every fault. They are on thelr
own, with a sense or Responsiveness d ttIeS,
for themselves so that they feel they
must make good by behaving properly.
OF course children's faults have TO
be corrected. They must be taught the
elementary principles of good manners
and good morals. They must be re-
strained and guided along the right
road. -.
But surely parents could do this
more effectively if they would do IT
more ,subtly and less continuously. All
human experience goes to snow tnat
the salve spreader is mightier than
the hammer, and that you can Deguile
peopIe into doing things that you
couldn't drive them into doing to save
YOUR life. The one place where
diplomacy is needed more than any
where else in the world is in dealing
with children, and yet there is not one
thinks of jollying their children into
the straight and narrow road instead
of bounding them into it. Which IS
the reason that so many little feet
stumble into the pits along the prin-
rose path.
Nearly every father and mother fall
into the don't habit. They say don't
automatically every time a child starts
to do thing. or wants to do any
thing, without ever taking the trouble
to first investigate and see whether
there is any real reason why the
youngster shouldn't do that particular
thing. This breeds in the child a
spirit Of revolt based on a perfectly
natural sense of injustice.
Also it puts his little back up, and
makes him determine to do it anyway.
In the beginning he may not have
cared very much about the thing, and
If no opposition had been offered he
would have let it drop, but the minute
he is told he cannot do it he is bound
and determined to do it. For we are
never so young but what stolen water
tastes sweet, and forbidden fruit
tom Dfv Our- annetiteS