Evening star., 1937-05-11
EAR DOROTHY DIX: From
my high school days until I
married l always worked as
secretary to men. doing in

i / always WOEktu dS h
- secretary to men, doing in
teresting and exciting work. I kept
my job after married until my baby
came, and then my husband insisted
that I give up my work and stay at
home and take care Of the child in
stead Of hiring some one else to do it,
I agree that 1t is for the best interest
of the child and for four years have
done so, but I have such periods of
rebellion and boredom at the confine-
ment and monotony of housework that
I think sometimes I can't stand it,
And how I miss the contacts of the
business world and my own money, the
ability to buy things when want
them and lack Of good clothes! am
getting definite inferior feeling with
it all. A child is sweet and / love
mine, but it does seem as though a
woman has to make such tremendous
sacrifice and adjustment when she
gives up business just to be wife and
mother. Knowing the stimulation Of
the business and professional world as
you do and knowing the lack of it for
the home woman, and also knowing
that most women who have their out
side work are more interesting and
wideawake persons than purely do
mestic women, what would be your
suggestion for a girls training?
CHANGED PERSONALITY.
AnsWer-The trouble with us Wom-
en- is that we can't have our cake and
eat it, too, while men can. If that is
one of the great injustices of sex, it is
one that Nature imposes upon us, and
there is nothing We can do about 1t.
When a man marries he simply
adds the comforts of a home, the
society Of wife, the happiness OF
having children to the Joy and inde-
pendence and interest and excitement
he gets out Of his career. He doesn't
have to give up being a doctor, or
a lawyer, or a business man because
he has taken unto himself a wife
and there is blessed event impend-
ing in his family. Nor does domes-
ITCHY interfere in his efficiency. On
the contrary, he is generally better
doctor, or lawyer, or business man
because he is good husband and
| father.
PUT wives and careers do not mix
No woman can turn out a really
| f1rst-claSs job in either If she is try
ing to do both. Especially can no
woman be good mother unless she
gives her personal attention to her
children. No professional tenderness
is like that OF mother. No expert
can pinch-hit for even an unframed
mother.
But motherhood is the hardest, the
most unceasing the most monotonous
and exhausting work in the world
1t is a 24-hour-a- day job that has
IN 1t no holidays or time of or sit
down strikes, seldom even a pay en-
velope. And no one need be sur
prlsed that the woman who has given
up mahogany desk for cradle some
times pines for the old days when
she knocked of work at S o'clock and
mad her evenings to herself; when
she could spend her money in the
beauty shop instead of for doctors
bills for junior: when she could listen
to stimulating talk all day instead of
oaby's dada and googly goo
For everything we get We have to
pay, and there is no doubt that the
| price OF Women's success in the outside
world has been to dissatisfy most of
| them with domesticity and unfit them
for it. There is no use in sentiment
talzlng about this. There are more
thrills in dressing yourself up and
going downtown to work than there is
IN putting on bungalow apron and
going into the kitchen. 1t is more in
terestlng to work in crowd, where
there Is something new to do and see
and hear every minute. than to work
alone IN a house where there is no
BODY to talk to but child. So the
woman who has been used to her own
money is never reconciled to having to
corkscreW every cent she gets out of
her husband.
But there is nothing that can be
done about it. 1t is just one of the
lmmutable laws of life that the
woman who has children must paw
for them by going through the agony
OF bearing them and the long years
OF sacrifice in rearing them. Happy
is she who gets JOY in doing it. And
happier still she whose children re-
ward her with love and appreciation
and by being an honor to her.
But the job of the business woman
and the job of the mother are not
the same. There is no training that
you can give girl that will fit her
for pulling them of simultaneously.
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