Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-02-24
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Stitch in Time
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.
HEARTBROKEN mother is helpless
u watching her little daughter take h

u watching her little daughter take h
first steps on the downward roa
The girl is seventeen and utterly beyond co y
troll. She refuses to go to school. She
clines to work She sleeps half the day, ar
dissipates three-fourths of the night. H !
comparions are loud, brazen, jazzy boys ar
girls, and when her mother demonstrates wi
her for associating with such undesirab
people, she bangs the door behind her. al 4
dashes off in an automobile to Heaven know
where.
The girl will not listen &c her IIotherA
warning. She is deaf to her mothers ed
treaties, and adamant before her prayers an
tears, and so the poor woman waves her in
potent hands and asks what shall she do
save her daughter. +%%.
The question comes just seventeen yea
too late. No one can tell mother now
control a hayward girl of seventeen, VII
has never been taught to do anything but
crafty her own desires, who has never bee
disciplined or had the sense of duty bred
| her.
| The prodigal daughter is far more diff
| cult problem to- deal with than the prodigy
son, because on dare not use che stern meal
ures in dealing with girl that often one ca
use e-ectively with boy.
Sometimes the boy can be stopped froS
sowing his wild oats by putting him in /
reform school, but to send glrl to reforz
school is to make her the associate OF t.
women of the streets and to smirch her nam
| for all time. Sometimes it makes man
the boy who is idle anC lazy, to chuck hi
out of the home and tell him tat he muI
work or starve, but to close the door on
young girl is to throw her to the beasts wy
prey on youth and beauty.
= So there is no way in which one can stq
the girl who has started tobogganing dow
the primrose path. She is pleasure-mad. 81
thinks only of the joy of the moment, 81
Is ready to sell her soul for a dance, and
drink, and a motor ride. She is too your
to realize what she is doing. She is too ignI
rant to count the cost. She is too selfish
care for the sorrow she is causing, anu II
disgrace she may bring on others She is
hard as rock and no appeals to her hea|
or Ter conscience touch her.
Sometimes God, in His mercy, saves SUI
a girl, but there is nothing that any humd
agency can do to prevent the catastroph
The mother can only stand by and suHer, an
if she is honest, say to herself: This IS n
work I am wholly to blame. little Will
soul was given in my keeping and this poo
tawdry rag of femininity is what have n ma'
of t." "
For mothers responsibility for her daug
fer is complete There isn't a woman IN q
world who doesn't know this, but the ia
that women refuse to face is that mother
work must be dore with her girls while tn
are little And IT. takes strength and coura
to wrestle with strong young Wills and co
ouer them. Tt interferes too much WI
bridge, teas, clubs and matinees., to be alWa
pruning, shaping, forming the thoughts al
habits of children. So the average moth
sidesteps the Job, and waits till her daughte
are grown to reason with them, and it's &c
ever too late.
Mothers have two aCcursed phrases wv
which they dope their consciences and stl
tify their intelligence. One is, II hope al
pray that my children will turn out well
i The other is som ething about their childr
Eoutgrowing their faults
Il Yet in her heart, every mother knows Tn
chance plays no more part in the brlngi
up OF children than it does in the multiple
tioI table, and that unless child's fau
are corrected, she does lot grow out or the
but grows into them more deeply
If mother gives little Mamie everythi
she bowls for as baby, what right has 9
to expect that Mamie will be self-denyl
grown girl? If Mamie never has WI
!, thwarted in her childhood who can expe
her to be willing to forego her desires wn
she is older? If NAMES temper is never CO
trolled, if she never learns Obedience OF
sacrifice herself for others, WHEEL she Is litt
who can expect her to be dutiful, cons
crate daughter when she is at the time
life when ones craving for the pleasures
youth are at their highest? !,
T. mother has taught Mamie, directly
indirectly, that fine clothes and amusemel
and the admiration of men are the chief
jects of a womans life, whose fault is
that she gets them how and where she ca
in the hey-day of her youth?
If Mamie has not had the habit Of obe
ence bred in her, if sense Of duty has U
been ingrained in her until it is part or t
very fiber of her being, how IL one going
expect her to yield to the mother who
never taught her to respect her, or to ma
any higher law than her own selfish pleasur
Mothers can't raise their children WroI
and then expect them suddenly to face aDo
and go right, and that's why the woman W!
the hayward laughter can do nothing WI
her BY the time girl is seventeen, n
character is formed for good or evil. Ii y
had been brought up from her babyhood
be obedient, and with sense Of her respo
sibility to Others; if she had been bred
modestly and high ideals; if she had be
taught moderation and self-control, she won
not have run wild She would have had tn
within her own soul that would have ne
her to the right road. She would have saw
herself, as we must all save ourselves
the end.
A mothers influence has been glorifed
song and story as the most sacred of ;
things. 1t is we'll to realize that mothel
influence is as all-powerful for evil as 1t
for good and that it can send girl or b.
to perdition, as well as take them to Heave
Copyright. 1921, by the Wheeler SyndiCat
Inc.)