Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-09-19

EAR MISS DlA-Ollllk tliC
depression my husband, my
self and three children have
- gone to live with my family.
We pay half of all the living expenses
and I do all of the housework, as my
mother uses me as maid. She makes
everything very unhappy for us. Com
plains of the children, abuses my
husband, laughs at my clothes, my
children, my husband and my in-laws.
Tells me lies about my husband-that
he doesn't give me all he makes.
Hints that he is unfaithful to me.
She says the same things about my
sisters husband and her two daugh-
ters-in-law. She says such cruel
things to me that I cry myself to
sleep every night, yet If I suggest
moving away she makes a terrible
scene, and tells me what I owe her
because I am her daughter, and that
I am selfish and don't love her. etc.
What shall I do?
A MISERABLE WOMAN.
Answer-Your course is perfectly
obvious. Move away from your mother
even if you have to live in one room
and have only bread and cheese to eat.
Better is a dinner Of herbs eaten in
peace than a stalled OK with quar-
reling woman.
IF YOU stay with your mother she
will make you a nervous wreck. She
will ruin the dispositions OF the chill
dren and she will ALLEVIATE you from
your husband, because sooner or later
the seed of suspicion that she is SOW
ing in your mind will take root. None
of us are impervious to our mothers
influence. We have been taught so
long that Mother knows" that we
still subconsciously believe it even
after we know better.
Any woman must have a crazy,
sadistic strain in her to make her
want to torture her children and break
Up their happiness and separate them
from their husbands and wives. But
many mothers seem to find their chief
amusement in doing so. They find
fault with everything their children
do and, no matter how much their
children do for them, they claim that
they are neglected.
They keep the domestic atmosphere
damp and soggy with their tears and
lamentations. They try to kill their
children's happiness in their marriages
by telling their sons how idle and
extravagant their wives are. and how
they were out playing bridge when
they should have been at home get
ting dinner. And they slay their
daughters trust in their husbands
by making them believe that they are
running around with other women,
and that when they say they are
working overtime at the store they are
really doing something else.
DERHAPS the mothers who thus
wantonly destroy their children's
happiness do not realize what crime
they are committing. Perhaps they
are Just peevish and fretful, and get
a morbid pleasure out of posing as
martyrs to their children. Perhaps 1t
is mother jealousy that cannot endure
the thought that their husbands and
wives are more to their children than
they are, and mother tyranny that
cannot bear to give up its hold over
a child. Perhaps it is just the frus-
tration of a mean spirit that seeks
to spoil the happiness of others and
kill love for them because it is un-
happy and unloved itself.
But, whatever the reason. 1t is the
cruellest and most dastardly of all
crimes because the hand that slabs
the heart that trusts it is a mothers
and it is so unthinkable that mother
should deliberately bring misery upon
her children's heads.
We talk lot about ungrateful chill
dren. but little is said Of ungrateful
parents. The one is as common as
the other. There are plenty of par
ents who enslave their children. Plenty
of parents who ruthlessly sacrifice
their children to themselves. Plenty
of parents who take all that their
children do for them without one
word of thanks or making one sign
of appreciation.
X
WHO has not known parents who
w shut the door of opportunity in
their childrens faces because they
wanted Tom or Sally to stay at home
and take care of them; who let Tom
and Sally toll for them and nurse
them and put up with their whims
through years and years, and whD
then complained that Tom was lack
ing in enterprise because he hadn't
got along better in the world, and
grumbled at Sally being an old maid?
The average parent rarely supports
a child more than 20 years. Generally
not more than Is. But there are mil
keI