Evening star., 1936-08-13
Favore Since Mexico First Gave the Old Wo
Dorothy Dix Says
A Working Daughter Has the Right to
Control Her Own Pay Envelope.
EAR MISS DIX: I have q
daughter Of 20 who is a great

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~ EAR MISS DIX: I have a
daughter Of 20 who Is a great
disappointment to me. She
- is a brilliant girl, graduated
from high school at the age of 16 and
she now holds a responsible position
with an important business man. She
wants to leave home and have an
apartment of her own. These are
the reasons she gives:
First Each week out of her salary
I allow her to keep S.. This is ample
for her carfare and lunch money and
should, If she Is careful in selecting
her entertainments, provide her with
q good many amusements. She has
five good dresses. Some Of these are
old, but she Is very neat and they are
She says that the other girls who
work hard from to 5 o'clock every
day don't have to come home and get
dinner and do the dishes and clean
the house on Saturdays. I feel that
since I am approaching so my days
Of strenuous work are over, and that
as she Is young and healthy these
tasks are not too much for her
Third. She sometimes uses up all of
her money before the week is out and
thinks that am unjust when re-
fuse to lend her enough to tide her
over Fourth. She complains that I
monopolize her friends when they
come to call. I feel that it is a
mothers duty to help entertain the
young people. Out of all of these
things I can see no good reason why
she should want to leave home. What
is your opinion.
misunderstood MOTHER.
Answer: The only thing that can't
understand about the situation is why
your daughter hasn't left home long
ago, for you are making nothing of
her but a slave You take away from
her the money she earns. You dump
the houSework on her in addition to
her hard days work IN the Office
You don't even give her the liberty of
seeing her friends alone. Why she
has submitted to such tyranny I can't
imagine.
II X n
7 SUPPOSE your excuse will be that
she "owes" all Of this to you be-
cause you brought her into the world
and fed and clothed her up to the
time she was able to go to work
Hence you feel that you have lien
on her services the remainder of her
life. But before you try to cash in
too heavily on the debt you consider
your children owe you just reflect
that they didn't ask to be born and,
having thrust life on them, it is your
obligation to take care Of them and
provide for them the best you can.
I believe that children have very
definite duty to provide for their
fathers and mothers If they are old,
or sick, or in need and unable to
support themselves. But it is mon
strous that parents should enslave
their children; that they should lay
their burdens on young backs and
make little hands toll for them. Yet
this often happens. I have known
many families in which an able
bodied father, still in the prime of
life, knocked off work as soon as the
girls got through high school and got
positions, and thereafter he never did
lick of labor.
You are most unfair in demanding
that your daughter shall turn over
her salary to you. The laborer IS
worthy of her hire, and every girl who
earns pay envelope has a right to
it. If her mother expects to share in
it, let the two of them decide on a
proper board and the girl pay it, but
the remainder of the money is hers
to do with as she sees fit.
\ x
1T TAKES the heart out of a girl to
feel that she is working for nothing
and that mother gets it all. 1t kills
her self-respect as an independent,
self-supporting individual to have to
go to mother for every penny and
have her dole out a few nickels And
it keeps her from ever learning how
to handle money by having mother
buy her Just what mother thinks she
should have. No woman would dream
Of taking her sons pay envelope from
him as she does her daughters. Why
this injustice should be practiced on
girls can only be explained by the
fact that girls stand for it and boys
don't.
No girl should be expected to help
with the housework when she has
labored in an Office from to every
day. She is worn out, exhausted, and
she should have rest and recreation.
The idea of q woman who is not so
and who is in good health wishing of
the housework on her working daugh-
ter is an outrage. A woman at that
age is generally healthier and stronger
than she has ever been in her life and
Wild cHIN's