The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-06
TIE CHI -DREN < WOMANS SPHEPE < THE HOME
Exposes the Vanities of
 the Older Generation
Dorothy Die
Fathers and Mothers Can't Gain the Confidence of Their Children Until They Climb Down
 From Their Pedestals

admit to having done anything in their whole lives that wasn't perfect ly proper. They were never tempted, they were never folish, but were al ways just perfect, prim little prigs of the breed that their own children loathe and despise, and whose exam pie 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 to school and always studied and got the highest marks in the class. He never had to be reminded to do his chores around, and he enjoyed taking care of the baby for his dear mamma, and preferred reading goods 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 got arrested for driving too fast. He never did anything silly and frivolous and young.
 When he returned homo he fol- lowed his fathers advice in every respect. He wen. into his fathers business. He never stayed out at night after II o'clock. He only went to SS6 SoQdI6 klIlS OI WHOIu IliS ldLHSI approved. He didn't waste his time or his money running around to cabarets and roadhouses, but was altogether Q perfectly proper young person.
 How can . poy tell father like that that he has overdrawn his all lowance, gotten into debt, and that money sharks are preying on him? Or that he has made puppy love to e1Har1V and he doesn't know how to break out of her tofls or that he has made an ass of him. self arfd has repented of his folly and wants to be steered into the right course by some experienced pilot who has sailed that course before? No sinner can confess to a saint. because the saint doesn't understand, but fellow sinners speak the same language and may offer each other in their father because they don't de- sire to commit paracide. and they think that father would fall down dead with horror If he knew the temptations that beset an ordinary young man.
 But they would be glad to chum with him and have his advice if he would just be honest enough to doff his halo and say. My boy. I know all about 1t. I have been through all the follies of youth and I have made every kind of mistake any body could make and have been all sorts of fool, so tell me all about it and let's see how we can fix things up."
 Same way with mother and the girls. You ought tC hear mother tell about how she always obeyed her mother. and what sensible clothes she wore, and how she always came home from party by 12 o'clock, and how shocked she would have been at the very idea of taking a joy ride Gn moonlight night, and of how. when young men called. they sat on one side of the room and she sat on the other, and they discussed improving topics in a dignified manner.
 Mother would have died before she would have submitted to any of the skylarking in which girls and boys indulge nowadays, and as for letting man kiss her, why, mother says that even father never kissed her until after they were engaged and the wedding day set.
 How Is girl going to tell pyunes and prisms mother like that about the things she does and about the places she goes to and about the dan gers that confront her and the prob lens she must solve?
 Mother says she never thought of a man as sweetheart until after he popped the question to her. How is daughter going to- tell her that she Is dead in love with q man and wants to knew how to catch him? How is daughter going to tell mother, who is always shocked about everything, about the temptations that beset her? She can't, and mother complains that her own daughter never confides in her. But she would If mother would do little confiding also and admit that when she was young she had been a silly little flap per instead of an austere goddess.
 The loss of their children's confi- dence Is pretty high price for parents to pay for their vanity. isn't