The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-30

young girl was telling me her tale of woe. which was all about a stern father who wouldn't let her make dates with some peachy boys she knew, and how was she going to endure life, to say nothing of having a good time and getting married, when she was kept shut up at home or an evening while other girls were allowed to go to places, and so on ana on, to-an accompaniment of many tears and much despair.
 And then the girl said:
 Ana l can't talk it over with tsther because when 1 go to tell him things, he gets so angry he just raves, and have to shut up."
 After the little flapper had Tapped away with her scanty skirts, and her bobbed hair, and her painted child face I thought that sometimes truly, out of the mouths of babes and stockings cometh wisdom. For In one sentence she had summed up the great tragedy of family life.
 T can't talk things over with my father because when I try to tell him thlngs, he gets so angry he just raves, and I have to shut up."
 There is the secret why parents cannot influence their children; why children do not conffde in their parents; why husbands and wives are at loggerheads so often, and live in a kind of armed neutrality, each ready to fly at the others throat.
 They never talk anything out calmly, quietly and dispassionately. They never try to get at each others motives, or to understand each others point of view. The minute the subject upon which they disagree Is preached, one or the other flies Into such violent passion that he or she becomes temporarily & mad man or woman, incapable of understand ing anything, and the matter has to be dropped unsettled in the interests of decency and peace.
 In this particular case to which I have referred, the father is a splen- did man, perfectly devoted to his lit- tie daughter, and he is doing his best, according to his lights, to protect her. But his lights are the flicker ing, mellow gas lights of his youth, instead of the flashing electric lights of today.
 Because, when he was young, all girls wore petticoats and red flannel underwear, he is in a state of per- petual outrage over the wisps of chiffon that suffice for lingerie for the modern girl, and he tries to back his daughter into the sort of clothes her mother wore 35 or 40 years ago.
 Because, when he was young, the boys and girls sat at home by the fire, and popped corn, and ate apples, and sang songs, he is mortified at the way young people rush away from home to joy-ride, or dance in pub lie places.
 Moreover, he is under the halluci- nation that in his day the young men were of a superior breed to the modern youth, and that when they visited a girl they sat up and dis cussed serious topics instead of sky larking, and giggling, and talking fooliShness, as they do now.
 That's fathers position. Daughter would like to set forth her side of the case to him.
 She would like to tell him that she belongs to the year of grace 1923, instead of 1883. That is is practically a new world since the war, with new standards That custom makes the right or wrong of many things, and that the things that it used to be scandalous for a girl to do, are per feetly proper now.
 She would like to tell father that she is more worldly wise at 20 than her mother was ats40, and above all, she wants to tell him that she is young. that she must have some pleasure.
 She wants to tell him that she must dance, and have good times, and have beauX, and that she has to play tn game in the way her genera tion plays it, or else not play it at all, and that if he shuts her up at home and won't let her do the things the other young people are doing, he is dooming her to bleak, joyless old maidenhood.
 If the girl could tell her father theso things, and they could thresh them out together, they could arrive at some sort of a compromise, in which she could have her fun, while he stood like a guardian angel in the background But they can't do 1t, because when they try to talk to- gether he gets too angry to listen.
 The result is that father is miser- able, and anxious all the time about the girl, and the girl sneaks off, and DS r Society I