Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-10
BY DOROTHY DIX

Fathers and Mothers can't gain
the confidence of their children until
they climb down from their pedes-
tails.
TIME trouble with most parents
is that they are not human.
They pose before their Off
spring as godlings, with the result
that their children feel toward them
as we do toward most superior
beings.
They believe in them and revere
them while they are young and
ignorant, and after they are older
and wiser and have found out what
a hollow mockery parental preten-
SONS are, they have a secret con-
tempt for them.
In the meantime, howver, this
high and mighty attitude of fathers
and mothers has done it's deadly
work. 1t has built a stone wall of
repellent virtues between the poor,
weak, faltering child and it's flaw
less parents. 1t has made the child
feel that there never can be any
possible understanding and sympa-
thy between it and a father and
mother who never had an unregen'
crate impulse or a desire to stray
from the straight and narrow path
There is nothing about parent
hood quite SO curious as that ii
seems to develop all the egotism in
people and raise it to the nth de-
gree. The homeliest man and
woman in the world are pleased to
death if you tell them that their I'm.
fortunate children look like them
TIL stupidest and those with the
most vicious tempers boast that
their son or daughter takes after
them, and having thus set them
selves up as models for their chill
dren, it naturally follows that they
must altitudinize ON pedestal be-
fore their children's eyes.
So mother and father assume to
be all-wise and allgood. They never
admit to having done anything in
their. whole lives that wasn't per.
fectly proper. They were never
tempted, they were never foolish
but were always just perfect, ,prin1
little prigs of the breed that their
own children loathe and despise, and
whose example nothing on earth
could induce them to follow.
According to father, when he was
little boy he never tore his clothes
and he always washed behind his
ears, and he just loved to- go tC
school and always studied and got
the highest marks in the class. He
never had to be reminded to. do his
choIes around home, and he en-
joyed taking care of the baby for
his dear mamma, ard preferrd read
ing good books to playing with bad
little boys on the street corner.
When he went to college he was
noted for his exemplary habits. He
never got into any scrapes. He
never exceeded his allowance. He
never got arrested for driving toe
fast. He never did anything silly
and frivolous and young.
When he returned home he fol
lowed his fathers advice in every
respect. He went into his fathers
business. He never stayed out al
night after II o'clock. He only
went to see sedate girls of whom his
father approved. He didn't waste
his time or his money running
around to cabarets and road houses
but was altogether a perfectly prop.
er young person.
How can boy tell a father like
that that he has CVerdraWn his al
loWance and gotten into debt, and
that money sharks are preying on
him? Or that he has made puppy
love to some elderly vamp, and he
doesn't know how to break out OF
her tolls, or that he has made an
ass of himself and has repented OF
his folly, and wants to be steered
into the right course by some expe-
rienced pilot who has sailed that
course before?
No sinner can confess to saint,
because the saint doesn't under
stand, but fellow sinners speak the
same language and may offer each
other a helping hand. Sons don't
confide in their fathers because they
don't desire to commit patricide. and
they think that father would fall
down dead with horror if he knew
the temptations that beset an ordi-
nary young maB
But they would be glad to chum
swer all letters received. I would like very