Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-12-21
SELF CONTROL
DY Dorothy Dix

Dy DOlOtlly LIN
YF were to go to a mother who was
grading her babe on her breast, and tell
her that | knew magic formula by
which'sh could insure power, and prosperity
and happiness to her child, she would impov-
erish herself to purchase this knowledge from
me, and fall on her knees and bless me for
having given it to he.
Yet know just such a bit Of white magic
In her secret soul every mother herself
knows it, but ninety-nine mothers out of
hundred are either too weak, or too lazy to
use it.
This charm that ,tould have changed all
life for innumerable people; that would have
kept men out Of prisons, and women out of
brothels; that would have turned paupers into
men; made the unsuccessful successful, and
stopped the wheels of the divorce couft-con-
ssts simply in teaching children self-control.
Almost every misfortune under which HUI
mainly suffers goes straight back to that.
There is hardly derelct in the world who
cannot say, 81 would not be what I am if
my mother had taught me to control myself"
For it is lack of sef-contrC' that is at the
bottom of all our sins of omission and COM
mission ~
LOOK at the murderer going to the death
chair Not once in thousand times IS he
cold FLOODED murderer, but he was a high
tempered child whose mother never taught
him to control himself There came a day
when something irritated him more than US
ual, and aflame with anger, he took fellow
creatures life. 1t is the supreme manifesta-
ton of the same spirit that made him kick
the chair against which he stumbled as
child, and beat with impotent little fists all
who thwarted him.
Look at the drunkard walloWing in the gut
ter. He is there because his mother never
taught him to control his appetites. He
is the logical outgrowth of the greedy little
boy who was permitted to gorge him If on
cake and candy until he made himself ILL.,
Look at the poor, shabby, out-at-elbows man
who had drifted from job to job all of his
life, and has never been able to make de-
cent support for himself and his family
He is his mother handiwork. She put the
curse Of incompetence on him when she let
him give UP every undertake rg the moment
he struck the hard shedding in it.
He changed from one school to another be-
cause the lessons were too difficult, or the
teacher was too strict When he started to
work, he left one place because the hours
were too long, another because lis boss was
too eXacting. He tried a dozen different oc-
equations that he left because lie found they
had unpleasant features and involved doing.
uncongenial tasks. He is a down-and-outer
because his mother never taught him the Elf
control that makes man set his teeth, and
go through with the business to which he has
put his hand
Look at the girls who go astray. Not one
Ct the sorrowful ssterhood" as the "a
nese ptfully calls them, but no is what she
is because she was so weak and SO in love
with some vicious libertine that she listened to
her heart instead her head Her mother
could have saved =" fl ON fate worse than
death if she had taught her to control her
emotions, instead of being ruled by them.
Did the girl sell her soul for fine clothes
and good times? Again the mothers fault
for not teaching the girl self-control, and to
estly get.
charity Of relatives and friends. In how many
cases is their unhappy fate simply the result
Look at the poor old people who are de-
pendent on their children, CT the grudging
of their lack of seIf-control They have had
their chance of fortune. AS long as the man
was able to work he made plenty of money,
and they lived luxuriousg, but they spent
everything as they went along. They laid up
nothing for their rainy day, and when it came,
it found them paupers and parasites. The
difference between dependence and indie
pendence between comfort and misery in
you old age depe1d DIS upon how much self
control you had in your youth.
Look at the ever increasing number of di-
yorces. Look at the forlorn half orphaned
children. and broken up homes Look at the
unhappy married ouple3 you know. What
is the real cause Of all this domestic trouble?
Merely that mothers do not teach their chill
dren seif-contrOl. They raise up spoiled, self
ish daughters who have neve considered
thing in life but their own pleasure.
They raise up spoiled, selfish sons who have
never considered another human being but
themselves. These two with undsciplined
wills, unrestrained tempers, undirected i'm
pulses, marry each other, and they fight '-.e
cats and dogs. Observation shows that either
a husband or. wife who can control himself
or herself can save almost any marriage, and
i takes no prophet to foretell that mothers
&C I'D insure their children's domestic happi-
ness by teaching them iron bound self-con-
troll.
If she has taught it self-control, she has
given it the magic hat works all the miracles
OF life, and if she hadn't, she has done it the
greatest wrong that any human being can
possibly do to another human being.
Copyright, 1929