Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-08-24
Dorothy Dix Says
Home and Family Life Two Most
important Things.

~ EAR MISS DIX-What Is
your opinion Of home and
family life? MARTHA.
- Answer-They are the two
most important things in the world
They are the foundation upon which
all civilization rests. They form the
character and set the life pattern OF
every one of US.
Every man and woman Of us are
stamped indelibly with the print OF
the homes out of which we have come
We are what our family life has made
us. No matter how far we 60, nc
matter what culture we take on, nc
matter how much we believe We have
changed and how much we think we
have gotten away from the teachings
of our childhood, they still subcon-
sciously color our every thought and
act.
OUR mothers and fathers shaped the
" clay and fired 1t in the oven Of
home, and we are what they made
US. In the great crises of our lives
we do not calmly reason things out
We are actuated by the principles
that we drew in with our mothers
milk. We stand or fall. We are weak
or strong according to the habits that
our parents bred in us.
That is why the making Of home
and the rearing of a family are the
biggest jobs that any man and woman
ever undertake, because the children
that they send out into the world are
going to be q blessing or a curse tc
it according to the way they have
done their work.
If the parents have made home
that was filled with love, peace, kind
ness, helpfulness and fair dealing, II
Is q practical certainty that the chill
dren who grow up In it will be
healthy, sane and free from all neu-
rotic tendencies. Psychoanalysts tel
us that they almost never have q
case of nervous breakdown in people
who have been reared in a happy and
cheerful home, but that, on the con-
trary, they can trace innumerable
nervous disorders, even in middle
aged people, to their having been
reared in stormy households where
the husband and wife were at odds
with each other and INDUCED in per-
petual quarrels.
And If children are brought up with
high ideals Of honor and honesty; Il
they are taught to control their tenn
pers and their passions; If they have
habits of industry and thrift bred into
them, the chances are a hundred u
one that they will develop into the
men and women who are the back
bone of every community.
" X X X
IT Is out of the slovenly and slopp!
= homes, with never a decent mea
or a comfort in them, that children
| flee to the street. It Is the fretfu
and nagging mothers and the grouchI
fathers who drive their children init
gangs for companionship. It Is TIL
| fighting parents whose children rur
| wild to get away from the scene o.
never-ending strife. It is the father
and mothers who lie and double
cross each other and who have M
fixed principles whose children taxi
the easiest way Of getting what the!
want, and become criminals.
The people who are doing the mos
important work in the world are no
those who are fulfilling some spectac'
ular career. They are not politicians
nor generals, nor admirals. nor writ.
ers, nor artists. They are the mel
and women who are making goot
homes and bringing their children
up to be fine men and women. To b
well born is to belong to such
family. Lucky the baby tina
achieves 1t.
NEAR DOROTHY DIX: I am I
- woman Of 40 with q husband three