Evening star., 1942-10-05

IIlcLllSclVcS OF SOI JOpS III SOINc laI.
off place and left me alone"
Well, nobody would underrate the
sacrifices that mother has to make
in rearing family. They are many
and great and incessant. For hun
cry little mouths have to be fed,
dirty little faces have to be washed.
stockings have to be darned, clothes
mended and washed, sick beds
watched over, adolescent boys and
girls have to have their Unsuitable
demands appeased; and unless
woman is rich enough to hire nurs-
cry rgovernesses and park her prog
eny in schools and camps she has
precious little time and chance to
be playgirl herself.
Still, for all of that, we could
mingle our tears little more freely
with those of the mother who walls
that she has sacrificed her whole
life to her children If we didn't re-
fleet that If she was q domestic
martyr she was a self-elected one,
and that the last thing in the world
the children wanted was mother
who was a family goat. They would
much have preferred one who was a
bird of paradise or canary who
caroled a merry roundelay.
OF course, if mother makes her
self the household drudge, children
will let her work her fingers to the
bone for them without even noticing
that she does it. If mother wears
patched shoes so that the girls may
have the latest thing in heelless and
toeless sandals, they'll take the fancy
footgear. If mother eats the back
of the chicken so that they can
have the white meat, they will just
conclude it is her peculiar taste and
gobble down the tidbits.
For children take mother at her
own valuation and If she makes
herself an unpaid servant to them
they take her on that basis without
thanks or appreciation. But that's
not the kind of mother they want.
What they want is mother OF
whom they can be proud, OF whom
they can brag to the other kids and
who is jolly playmate. Not liv-
ing sacrifice.
Not long ago hundreds Of school
children were asked what kind OF a
mother they would like to have and
what they would like to have
changed about their mothers If they
could. The replies were illuminate
ing. Dozens of them wished for a
pretty mother; others wished for a
mother who wore stylish clothes;
many desired mother who would
use rouge and lipstick and have red
f1ngernails. And several pathetic
little hearts desire was for a mother
who laughed. But none of them
wanted q mother who was running
her own life for them. This should
make women realize that the sac
rifice Of a mothers life to her chill
dren is like almost every other sac
rifice, futile and thankless.
As matter OF fact, it harms the
children instead of benefiting them
because it makes them selfish and
greedy. It forces on them a perpet-
ual babyhood that they often never
get over. It keeps them from hav-
ing a sense of responsibility and
playing the game. And it makes
them the worst bet in the world as
husband and wives.
The mother yho sits up at night
making her childrens rompers by
hand instead of buying them in the
10-cent store; who never reads any,
thing but the cookbook, and who
stays at home and watches the baby
breathe instead of stepping out, 60
ing places enough to keep up with
her old crowd, isn't doing her chill
dren the favor she thinks she is.
She Is doing them a disservice be-
cause she inevitably becomes dull
and behind the times so that her
children refuse to be guided by her
and laugh at her opinions. She de-
prives them of the places in society
she should have held open for them.
The best mothers are not those
who sacrifice their lives to their
children: they are those who are
comrades to their children instead
Of slaves, who keep part of their
lives for themselves and give their
children chance to live their own
lives.