Evening star., 1936-08-26
Throw Boys
And Girls
Together
Familiarity Tends to
Dim Glamour of Each
Others Company.
BY ANGELO PATRI.

"I OOK at this. I found this note
that my daughter wrote to a
boy. She actually tells him here that
she thinks of him every day and loves
him with all her heart. Is she crazy
or what?"
quite normal, should say. What's
wrong about a girl and a boy who
have fallen in love? They always
have"
This is my daughter. Sixteen
years and three months old. And she
writes a note to boy. A regular love
note. I'm scared to death. What am
I to do with her-at her age? She
is only a child and should never give
q thought to such things-at her age"
"But adolescent boys and girls are
keenly alive to sex and all that sex
implies
II won't have my daughter having
such ideas. won't have it, that's all.
I was going to send her to college, but
now I won't. I'll keep her home. I'll
have her work in my Office so I can
keep an eye on her"
But one day, for one minute, your
eye will be off her. What then? I'm
afraid you will have to do what most
fathers do-help your daughter to
understand herself, give her the best
possible education, the best possible
training, and hope for the best. Six
teen-year-old daughters do not usually
run off with the boy they write notes
to. They usually have a long list OF
boys between the first and the one
they elect to partnership for life. 1t
won't help any to get frightened and
frighten the girl. Fear is not good
teacher.
Bring in more boys, more girls. Tell
the girl to invite them in for good
times. Give her a chance to know all
the boys that are worth knowing.
Don't make them scarce and rare and
out of reach. If you do she will cling
to the one she manages to reach, and
so you accomplish the very thing you
want to avoid-tie your daughter to
the one boy who happened along at
Just the critical time. There is moth
ing to be afraid of. The more oppor-
tunities boys and girls have to know
each other, play together. work to-
gether, the less notes are written, the
fewer secret alliances formed.
Fathers seem more shocked by their
daughters interests in boys than their,
mothers are. 1t would seem that they
lived with their daughters in sort of
half-conscious state, scarcely aware
that they are in the house. Then, it
seems to them, all of sudden this
little girl is alive to her potential pow
ers of attraction, to her sex, to her
place in life's scheme. Father is
alarmed. shocked, afraid for the safe
ty of this newly discovered daughter.
Mother has known all along that she
was there and has been prepared for
her development to some extent. She
Is not shocked, but she is anxious.
Much of the anxiety, which is all
very natural and not without cause,
could be avoided if father took note
of his baby daughter, his little girl,
his growing girl, through the years of
her development. If he was her friend
and conf1dant, if he entered into all
her hopes and plans, if he advised and
explained and helped from day to day,
he would not be found helpless and
afraid at the very natural develop
ment of his daughter. Nor would he
find her writing notes, in secret, to
her boy friends Notes would not be
necessary, because open friendships
would be accepted as a matter of
course.
(Copyright, 1860