Evening star., 1936-05-08

other human relationship so
close as that between mother
L and daughter. We are COM
mitted to the belief that because a
woman bears girl child she intuitively
understands her and that they are Just
naturally devoted to each other.
OF course, this often happens. There
are plenty of mothers who are daugh-
ter worshipers and plenty Of daughters
who have such q mother complex that
they are totally untitled to be wives or
to live any independent lives Of their
own. They are never happy If parted
from their mothers.
But it Is not true that all mothers
and all daughters are peculiarly at
tached to each other and find each
other congenial. Many mothers and
daughters are temperamentally antag-
onistic to each other and rub each
others fur the wrong way, so there Is
continual conflict between them.
Many other mothers and daughters are
jealous of each other. Others fight
together for supremacy in the home,
or engage in a death struggle for a
little personal liberty. Each finds the
other unendurable and longs for the
day to come when they can break the
feters that bind them together.
II you doubt this, consider how
II 80 ~ fp-CKr
home. Thousands Of them marry for
no other reason than to get away from
Mother and the daily spats with her
about everything they do and leave
undone. Thousands of other girls who
have luxurious homes, delicious food
to eat and servants to wait upon them
look with envy upon the working girls
who live in shabby fats and cook their
own scanty meals when they come
home at night from their Offices, but
who are away from Mother.
CONSIDER also how eager mothers
~ are to get their daughters married.
At q sons wedding Mother is a foun-
tain of tears, but at daughters wedding
she looks like the cat that has just
swallowed the canary. Likewise, con-
slider how much fonder Of each other
mothers and daughters invariably are
after they are parted, either by the
girls marriages or by their getting jobs
in a distant city. Indeed, it is not too
much to say that maternal and filial
affection increases in direct ratio to the
distance between mother and daugh-
ter.
All Of which is, Of course, perfectly
logical and need surprise none Of us
If we would only look at life as it is
instead Of trying to prettify 1t into
what we think it should be. We
think, for instance, that all mothers
and daughters should be rubber stamps
Of each other. hence able to get along
with each other harmoniously because
they have the same tastes and
thoughts and desires. But such is not
the case once in a hundred times.
Old hens hatch out swans and
swans discover ugly ducklings in their
nests. Brilliant mothers have Dumb
Dora daughters. Pious mothers have
daughters who develop into night club
hostesses and fan dancers. Domestic
mothers, whose idea of perfect day
is making plum jelly or turning out
the closets, have daughters who want
to be aviatrixes or movie actresses, or
what have you. And the two are
always at odds just because they have
nothing in common. They do not
even speak the same language.
The only daughter a mother ever
really understands and gets along
with is the one who is replica OF
herself. If mother was society belle
in her day. she sympathizes with the
daughter who also adores parties and
has an attraction for men. But she
never comprehends why the daughter
who Is a student prefers to pore over
books instead of dancing holes in hel
stockings, and she regards the daugh-
ter who insists on going into business
intead of making her debut as an
affliction sent on her by the Lord.
y X y y
THEN, too, no two grown women
can live in peace together in q
house, no matter if they are mother
and daughter, unless one of them has
a doormat disposition, because both
Of them want to run the house and
run it in different ways, and there
| can be lust as bitter fight over