Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-05-21
FATHERS DAY, TOO

Each Mothers Day, I get just a little bit sick at all the
mush that is printed and spoken about Mothers. I might say
at the beginning that I am an actual bonafde mother myself,
and know as much as anybody else about the MOTHERHOOD.
So you needn't think l am a childless person who is working
on hard-hearted theories on the public.
But why such an over-emphasis on the MOTHER part of
parent-hood? To be sure, the larger share of the care of the
children comes on the mother, but if she has any sense of
discrimination, the mother is the very first one to admit that
motherhood is her "job." 1t can't be put on the purely Geo.
nomic plane that other jobs occupy, but what mother cares
about thatf She doesn't want to be paid for being a mother.
If she does, the privilege of motherhood ought to be denied
her. Her children would be better off in a public institution.
There are thousands of wonderful mothers, the kind you
like to think you are, the kind you hear about on Mothers
Day, but there are also thousands of selfish, indifferent, and
even just plain, rotten mothers, who don't care a rap what
happen to their children as long as they themselves can, eat,
dress, and go to the movies. There are a good many mothers
that are even jealous of their children, and resent bitterly
any attentions that the fathers may give to the children.
The folly of clarifying mothers just because they are
mothers is as hysterical as some other public movements that
I could name.
Motherhood, when it is glorious as it can be, should be
elevated to a shrine, and perhaps it is that glorifed mother
hood that we all think of on Mothers Day. But I tell you,
when it comes to pulling out the tremolo stop on Mothers
Day, l think we'd better abandon such slush. Let's have
Mothers Day, by all means, but let's make it a joint affair
for fathers and mothers.
wonderful understanding of my father to me even as a very
little child. And the other children in the family remember
it too, and remember it with tenderness. I know there are
many others to whom a fathers love is just as sweet and
precious a recollection as the mothers love-to whom
FATHER means something decidedly more than just the
one that pays and pays and pays"
1t is regrettable that in the rush of business fathers have
so little time to play with their children. 1t is a loss to both
fathers and children. Whenever father realizes it, however,
he is quite likely to make opportunities for getting acquainted
with his children, SO that they will not remember him only as
some one who stayed there nights and dealt out whlppngs
in times of stress.
Children need the Participant of the parent combi-
nation Just as much as they need the MOTHER-part. Mothers
who have had to bring up their fatherless children can TESTIFY
feverently to that need.
OF course it is instructive to most women to know how
TO care for the needs of children. That instinct has been pro-
vided by crafty old Mother Nature, whose one idea seems
to be the carrying on of the human race. The mother instinct,
however, need not cause the Mothers Day orators TO gen
too sobby. A mother gets her fun out OF her children just
as surely as she gets the labor that their possession involves;
She gets it in her dreaming OF them and all the WONDERFUL
things that they are going to do, even before they, are Dorm;
she gets it in their funny little efforts to talk and TO walk;
and she gets it as they grow and develop and bring home
fearful language and appalling problems from school. she
has a new life with every child, added to hers. Her interest
in life is multiplied tenfold with every child she has. You
can prove that very easily by calling to mind the mothers 0 l
large families. Have you ever seen one that WASH sunny ana
cheerful and that you enjoyed, just because her atmosphere
was 8 n nleasant and so human? The mother OF a large family
doesn't want any mawkish, plying sentmentahty spiHeq
ont over her, She's having her fun, and heaps OF IL. ALL
TIE TIME AS SHE GOES ABOUT HER JOB. Her invest
,nant ID always paying dividends. Now SHE doesnt, tnere,
fore want any tombstone talk on the day called Motners
Day. ..:.1- o,o dow zach wear
,uhat = means TO have had mothers, let the day be MADE
oornlete nv calling it Mothers and Fathers Day, ana make
II trnIv a day for IGNORING thy father and tiny mother.
The first ones to vote for such an enlargement OF the meaning
80 4bo dav would be the mothers themselves. Ihey kno" te
;nsst;rahle value of fathers better than any one else!