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Show If : 1 Kathle en Norris Says: Paying the Piper Bell Syndicate WNU Features. fcgk Si -w .... ty jr The average mother shrinks from the thought that any other mere woman is going to windier son away from her. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THERE is a familiar old saying to the effect that when you call the tune you have to pay the piper. One reason why older women, mothers and teachers and guardians of girls, are so extraordinarily ex-traordinarily fussy about what girls do and don't do, is because the years between 16 and 26 are the years when most of us call the tune. Because she is young and confident and spoiled, full of half-formed yet very ambitious ambi-tious dreams for the years to come, a girl will quite readily call the tune. She's going to marry Paul and reform him, and they will inherit all his uncle's money and live in the smartest of Park Avenue's Ave-nue's apartments. That's the tune. When ' Paul doesn't reform, and the uncle's wealth turns out to have been a handsome annuity that ended end-ed with his life, and when the smart apartment turns out to be a forty-dollar forty-dollar flat in the Bronx, that's when the piper calls for his pay. Small children can't make important impor-tant decisions. People in the thirties thir-ties and forties usually have had some experience, and occasionally have some sense. Old people have called all the tunes, and paid and double paid the importunate piper, and their deciding times are over. So the dangerous time is in the late 'teens and the early twenties, and we older women watch our girls tearfully and sorrowfully at that fame, hoping that whatever we have been able to give them of code, of sense of duty, of wisdom and understanding, un-derstanding, will guide them safely through. FAMILIAR TUNE As Kathleen Norris points out this week, if you insist upon calling the tune you must be prepared to pay the piper. But at least once in her lifetime, every woman forgets that. Usually it is when she falls in love, or thinks she does. It's an old, familiar tune, that song of love, and one for which she is nearly always unwilling to pay with the stiff price of a broken heart, a tragic divorce or the bitter disillusionment that is the special torture of very young hearts. was hardly over before quarrels began, be-gan, I think any young couple, feeling feel-ing as we did, would have married as we did. Tended Baby Alone. "I wanted a child; Sidney didn't. He hated the idea. Before Janey-Jo was born he treated me with real, if not always purposeful, cruelty. Night after night he was away until one or two in the morning, and I lay awake worrying about him. The baby was 'that damn kid,' and, as dancing, rtennis, trips became impossible im-possible for me, it was an incessant 'well, what did you have it for?' Finally, I was to be forgiven if it was a son. His mother came to stay with us, and stated that the Bates babies always were sons. My adorable ador-able baby was born tiny, weak, a nutrition problem from the beginning. begin-ning. Neither Sidney or his mother showed any concern. I brought my little girl through her first hard weeks alone, bearing all the anxiety and fatigue as best I could. Sidney was away more than ever; I felt like a mere paid housekeeper, keeping keep-ing my fretful baby out of his way as much as I could, sleeping in the Girls Better Prepared. For it is a terrible truth that most of our young men are completely unprepared to make good husbands. Girls have a better chance for several sev-eral reasons. One is that many girls know something of housekeeping, housekeep-ing, managing, wifely obligation just from watching mother. Another is that the success of a marriage depends de-pends much more upon the wife's disposition than upon that of the husband. Boys have no such training. The average mother shrinks from the thought that any other mere woman is going to win her son away from her. She'll not anticipate this calamity ca-lamity by helping him see" what is fine and trustworthy in any girl, and what is not. They're all vampires trying to capture her Robert, and she'll not help them! So she is very apt to misrepresent them to him, criticize them, warn him that although al-though Ann is a very fine girl, she's going to get fat like her mother, and although Susan seems a perfectly per-fectly delightful creature, there is that uncle of hers who misappropriated misappropri-ated funds ten years ago. So Robert goes afield to find his sweetheart, and the result is a part of our tragic national story of divorces. di-vorces. Here is the case of an Oshkosh woman; a case that is typical of many, and full of bewilderment and suffering. Mary Bates is 25, a capable capa-ble office worker, with a small girl of four. A small girl of four, as some of us know, can be a rather bewitching person, and the picture Mary Lee, sends me of Janey-Jo could go 'on any magazine cover with general approval. "When Janey-Jo was 11 months old I left her father," writes Mary. "The reasons were complete incompatibility, incom-patibility, boredom, continual drawing draw-ing apart; it was a marriage that never should have taken place, as niy own father and mother and all my friends knew well. But I was 19, Sidney 29, we were both infatuated, infatu-ated, and although the honeymoon nursery to be sure tnat sne survivea the nights, and spending long lonely days with a book and a perambulator perambula-tor in the park. "Then I went to my mother, and here I have been for more than three years. Janey-Jo is a gloriously glorious-ly sturdy little creature now, and the delight of both our lives. Sidney asked- me not to get a divorce for business reasons, and I agreed, glad to be spared publicity. He was traveling trav-eling a good deal, and only a few intimates knew that we were living apart. Also, at the time of the separation sep-aration he stated that he wished half-custody half-custody of his child; very surprisingly, surpris-ingly, for he hadn't seemed to know she was alive. But I think his mother moth-er put him up to it. "You can guess the rest; the good, fine, protecting man who has come into my life, to show me what love is, and what life might be. He is my mother's doctor, 38 years old, fine in every way. He lost his wife two years ago; is childless, and loves my child. Price of Happiness. "And now Sidney won't consent to a divorce unless I surrender Janey-Jo entirely! His mother and a widowed sister want her, of course, and he wants to please them. So between them they would sacrifice the little thing who owes her life to me, who would never have weathered weath-ered a thousand crises but for me. Is this fair? I become so frantic with resentment when I think of it that I know I am not regarding the situation reasonably, and I want your opinion. What is my best way out?" . , How to avoid paying the piper? It was headstrong 19 that called the tune; it was an inexperienced, infatuated in-fatuated girl who leaped into the marriage; it is a saddened, hurt, wiser woman who has to bear the result. Mary's only solution lies in patience, pa-tience, but time goes slowly for separated sep-arated lovers, and her resentment will break forth again and again. Perhaps if she had been less exacting, ex-acting, perhaps if the great affan of bearing a child hadn t seemed tc her a time of loneliness and jealousy jeal-ousy but a strictly individual anc gloriously important job, independ ent of Sidney's comings and going: during the months of waiting; per haps if she had been a little more resourceful, a little more inclined tc regard herself as an individual rath er than a wife; this difficult s.tua tion wouldn't have arisen. But it ha arisen, and the piper is waiting foi his pay. She insisted upon call.nj the tune, and now she must pay ... my little girl. |
