Evening star., 1936-05-09

Girls With
HOuSeWOrk
Boys Should Have to
Do Their Share as
Well.
BY ANGELO PATRI.

MO1HERS open tne doors Wlde ana
AA tell the boys to go out to play.
Il can't stand your noise. I want the
baby to sleep this afternoon. Come
nome in time for your supper" Out
go the boys until the Fairgrounds and
lots are filled with them, gay and loud
and full of health, with never a care
in the world.
Not so the girls. Scarcely has the
girl hung up her coat when her mother
says. DO hurry up, Marie, and give me
hand with these towels. I ought to
have had them ironed long ago, but
the baby was so fretful While you run
them off I'll go out to the butchers.
1 haven't had a chance this day. And
if the baby wakes up give him bottle
and quiet him. I won't be long"
Marie is busy with one thing and
another, helping with the ironing,
tending the baby, setting the table, Sit
ting down only when the evening meal
is served. After that is finished Marie
usually washes the dishes. Her brother
does not help. He is tired. He lies
down on the couch and listens to the
radio. BY and by somebody suggests
that he do his homework, and after
thinking that he finished it in school
and being reminded that he couldn't
have done his map, his arithmetic and
his spelling in that time, he reluctantly
goes off to attend to lessons. Marie is
already hard at work on hers.
Now haven't word to say against
teaching children to be useful in the
home, learning to help with all the
household tasks. Mothers need the
help children can give, and children
need the experience and power that
helping brings them. But I want to
speak word for the Maries who never
get chance to play and whose BROTH
ers never get chance to help about
the house.
I contend that it is as much the duty
and privilege of the boys to help with
the household work and the baby as it
is the girls. If girls are to be mothers
the usual reason for imposing upon
them in this fashion-then boys are to
be fathers. and that is quite as good
reason for asking them to do their
share and give the girls chance to
rest and to play. Take turns.
In a family there is usually one girl
who takes home responsibilities to
heart. One girl who feels she must
stand by mother. One girl who feels
that the boys need her which, being
interpreted, means that the boys need
their buttons sewed on, their socks
mended, their beds made, their dough-
nuts sugared just right. Her motherly
instincts are expending themselves on
the immediate family. That Is fine, II
it does not go too far and last too long
last so long that these boys and girls
she has so faithfully tended all 60
their way, establish homes of their
own and leave Marie with empty hands
and lonely heart.
Mothers ought to guard such girls
against their own devotion to family
duties. Make all the brothers and sis
ters help so that the burden does not
fall on one. Force Marie to go out
and play once in a while. See that
when the time comes she, too, goes to
the parties and the shows; that she,
too, has friends, boys and girls, to visit
her and with whom she visits. 1t is
easy to accept all the service that such
girls render until they become a mat
ter of course. BY and by 1t is too late
to correct the mistake.
Give every girl her chance to play.
The Fairgrounds are not the exclusive
property of boys. though to. look at
them in the afternoon one would think
so. Train all girls for healthy partici-
patton in the life about them and
teach the boys that their sisters have
rights,