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Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Must She Fret Over Trivialities? Bell Syndicate WNU Features By KATHLEEN NORRIS WORRYING is a fault and a habit. It is also stupid. But of this faulty, stupid habit, many women make a virtue. They are Droud of their worrying. It nearly drives everyone mad; but they are meekly, resignedly proud of it. Take the wife of the man who writes the following letter. He, Jim. Is 40; his wife is 36. These are wonderful ages, the very cream of life. But for Rose the cream is curdled. "The girls and I love Mama," writes Jim, or rather typewrites, on paper that shows he is the head of a wood and coal business. "We've got everything we want a nice home, friends and we're all normal people, no sickness of body or mind. So what can keep a sensible woman like Rose fretting and worrying, nagging and complaining com-plaining is more than I can see. She says her mother was a great worrier, and says it as if it were something rather fine. Others Don't Fuss "But what she doesn't know," Jim adds, "is that a man is apt to meet other women who don't make such a darned fuss about everything. every-thing. My agent in a near-by town is a young war widow, and is just a streak of sunshine. Nothing worries wor-ries her. "She'll fix a little meal up In the office; she'll laugh If anything goes wrong; she's sure this'll come out right and that'll all clear up, and it's a pleasure to be with her. She's got a boy of five and the way she handles that little fellow is a pleasure to see. They laugh together to-gether like a couple of kids. "At home Rose begins nagging when I arrive and doesn't stop until un-til I leave the next morning. Our girls are only nine and five, but aireaay tney are Deginning to ignore ig-nore her criticisms. Their clothes, i ". . . tbt criam it cutdltd . . their health, our financial status. the weather, the people she sees and doesn't want to see, and the ones she wants to see who don't come, my manners If I'm too cordial, cor-dial, my manners if I'm too cool, my family's treatment of her when she was a bride 12 years ago there's no end to It. If I get in a helper, the girl wastes everything and Isn't clean; If I don't get her anyone, ahe's half dead with work "And all the time she's capable and hardworking and economical, and would die for any one of us," the letter continues. "But she sure does make life a burden for herself her-self and everyone else. Criticises His Driving "Then there'i my driving. She leans over from the back seat and watches the road like a cat, and there Isn't a chicken or a red light or a truck that she doesn't see 'way ahead. It gets a man nervous. The whole thing gets you down." This Rose of Jimmy's sounds to me like a too-well known type There Isn't any advice or suggestion sugges-tion that will reach such a woman. She Is too entrenched In her own conviction and righteousness. Her defense would be thst Jimmy Jim-my Is careless, that there are many accidents, that aomeone has to watch the family safety and sanity, san-ity, that people would be wasting money and getting sick and spotting spot-ting their clothes and leaving lights burning and running Into traffic if she wasn't on guard. She would argue that she kept a perfect house, never rested day or night, had to assume responsibility because be-cause no one else would, and altogether al-together considered herself pretty nearly the perfect wife and mother. No, you can't reach the worriers, complainers and naggers with even the gentlest criticism. They are letter-perfect, and they would laugh at the idea that households need the spirit as well as the letter. The letter, says the wisest book In the world, killeth. But in the spirit is eternal life. What might reach Rose's impregnable impreg-nable fortress of perfection Is the hint of the other woman, in Jim's letter. The other woman, in his branch office In a neighboring town. The woman who Is simple and cheerful and philosophical Grief and change already have struck at this woman. She is one of hundreds who were widowed in the war years. She had a child to protect. She had her living to make. And still she is happy and self-reliant self-reliant and free from the swarms of mosquito cares that beset the more fortunate Rose. Jim doesn't sound the kind of man who raises arguments, gets into domestic quarrels easily. But any man is the sort that just gets deadly, deadly tired of constant nagging reminders that everything Is all wrong. Lots of things are worrisome wor-risome today. But the things that make Rose, and so many other women, as destructive as termites to the walls of home are not these big world problems. No, with them it Is the weather, and that the kit nen clock stopped, and other trivia of that sort to the number of thousands. |