OCR Text |
Show KATHLEEN N ORRIS Girl's Mother Is too Ambitious TODAY'S rather sad and difficult appeal comes from a St. Louis girl of 15. She is not strictly a resident of that city, but her father fath-er works there, and she does not want her particular suburban town Identified. Hers is an old and subtle problem, and I am not sure I can help with it, although I have met it hundreds of times. "My mother is everything that is sweet, generous, tactful," writes Norma. "She is small, dainty, and most amazingly capable. She loves home. Daddy and me; she keeps everything fresh and sweet, is merry mer-ry and affectionate, and everyone loves her. "I am tail, steady and practical in type my father's child. I am shy, making friends slowly, and getting get-ting confused in any social crisis. I am completely happy with books, walks, fishing trips with my father, and a few girl friends. We board three men students from a nearby business school, and I like those we have now, but all three are five or six years older than I, and all have girls. Mother would not want me to fall in love with this type of boy, however, so she doesn't worry about that. v Doesn't Belong "My trouble is that my mother Is ambitious for me. She comes from a family higher in the social scale than Dad's; she had every advantage advan-tage as a girl, and many beaux. Lots of her old friends are nice to me, and invite me to their children's chil-dren's affairs, but I do not belong there. I haven't the right clothes I save my mother all the fussing and money worry and risk of snubs and disappointments that all this means, and live the quietly happy life that is right near me, and yet so far away." Poor little 15-year-old Norma, this really is a hard situation. Often love complicates an affair like this, for the last thing you want to do Is hurt your mother, and yet you can't help hurting her all the time. She evidently is resigned re-signed to the fact that your father is not ever going to give her the luxury she once had, but she is fighting to gain it for you. Already she is dreaming of a distinguished marriage; you must have the big house and the servants and the trips and honors she will never have. My suggestion is that you compromise. com-promise. Give in occasionally, go off determined to enjoy one of these deadly affairs at which, in spite of the fact that you are, I suspect, infinitely superior in most ways to other youngsters, you simply can't seem to get in, to get started, to show them your real self. Then develop your own social group. Do this by attending evening eve-ning classes and really working hard at architecture, Spanish, drama. You'll meet real people; a spectacled, shabby boy who wants to write poetry, a hard-working young giant who means to be a big doctor some day, a merry little couple painting tomorrow's masterpieces master-pieces in an attic, a middle-aged widower wistful for something more than the drudgery of office days. And presently you'll find the man who will rescue you from your mother's fluttered, anxious plans. . . completely happy ..." and if I did have I wouldn't wear them the right way; they are absorbed ab-sorbed in their own friendships, and I feel what I am, an unwelcome outsider. "Mother can't see it. She slaves and sacrifices to get me what girls have, and I don't want any of It! She coaxes invitations from people giving ski parties, house parties, dances. Then she coaxes me to go, and afterward questions me so eagerly about the good time I had that it hurts me to tell her I am an absolute dud. I come home sick with humiliation and anger, and I. simply can't crush her with the truth. "Every little while she gives a dinner for the children of her friends. They go to private schools; I don't, so we have nothing in common. com-mon. Sometimes the girls accept and the boys don't; and for days she is at the telephone trying to match up girls and boys. With her friends she is always pretending that we usually have a servant, we are just camping in this house until Dad gets a very Important promotion, promo-tion, and so on and on. Can't Bear This "I feel so sorrv for her, and for me! My father loves her so much, and is so easy going and so happy in his home, that everything she does is right, and he just agrees with both of us. But I feel as if I couldn't bear years of this, until I am older, can take a job, and perhaps marry some quiet man that no other girl wants. How can |