OCR Text |
Show Kathleen Norris Says: Three Wishes for My Child Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. V si wAMcl Betsy, rather fat, not particularly pretty, and not as smart as Pat, is nevertheless never-theless into everything, popular everywhere, laughing herself, and keeping everyone else laughing. By KATHLEEN NORRIS PROBABLY if you could do one thing for that baby of yours it would be to make him rich. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say! That riches do not mean happiness, that character and charm are what count and so on. But if a letter arrived this morning saying that Uncle Harold had died leaving each of your three children a quarter quar-ter of a million, you'd not only feel tremendously excited, elated and grateful, but every friend and neighbor you have would envy you. Second, mothers like their girls to have beauty. All girls are nice-looking these days, what with their fine athletic young bodies, their brushed hair and clean skins and their make-up. But there is no mother who doesn't like to have it said, "Nancy's exceptionally lovely, Anna. Where'd you ever get such a glamour girl!" Third comes a bunch of advantages; advan-tages; travel, cleverness, charm, magnetism, music, sports, languages, lan-guages, intelligence. We all want our children to have just as much of all these as we can pack into their lives. I remember years ago sitting watching youngsters in a horse show, in an extremely exalted social atmosphere. One beautiful girl about 18 years old had the world at her feet. She was rich, she was cultured, cul-tured, at least to the extent of being able to jabber impressively about foreign embassies, junior league dances, one's school days in Paris, one's presentation in London, one's acquaintance with half the prominent promi-nent folk of the world. She came up to show us her horse's blue ribbons; she was easily the most conspicuous figure in the show. Becomes Bitter Woman. Well, that was 20 years ago. She is a bitter, talkative, self-assertive woman now, always on the defensive. de-fensive. She has been married twice and divorced twice; neither one of her children is in his mother's moth-er's custody. I think it would be hard to find a more unhappy woman. Disposition is the priceless treasure treas-ure in this world. To be born with a cheerful, forgiving, philosophical disposition is to be born with something some-thing worth the gold of Golconda, or the beauty of the Queen of Sheba. Everywhere in the world there are women spreading service and happiness like so many smaller suns. Not particularly pretty women, wom-en, not women who spend fortunes upon the tint of their cheeks or the color of their hps. But radiantly useful, confident, generous-hearted women, who are busy keeping homes places of content and comfort, com-fort, who are laughing off slights and disappointments, who are planning plan-ning a glorious tomorrow for the boys who come home. Women with happy natures. You see the tragedy of this paradox para-dox illustrated sometimes in the lives of small sisters or brothers. Clever Patricia, with the curls and the star-sapphire eyes, is a discontented, discon-tented, sensitive, jealous little thing, always wanting Betsy's things, or imagining that someone dislikes her. Betsy, born of the same parents, par-ents, rather fat, not particularly pretty, and not as smart as Pat, is nevertheless into everything, popular popu-lar everywhere, laughing herself and keeping everyone else laughing, eager, friendly, radiantly interested in the great adventure of life. Mothers like their girls tohavebeauly , , , i i Pat will go on to her destiny of pride, loneliness, discontent. And Betsy will become one of those daughters, wives, friends, mothers, moth-ers, aunts, who draw about them an adoring, demanding, heart-warming family circle, building more and more happiness into this tangled web of life as she goes along. Trend Shows in Babyhood. There is not much we can do about it. We come to this life with sunshine or shadow in our way of looking at things, and even in a baby of two the trend of a lifetime can be discerned. But we can do something. What you can do for your proud, pretty, selfish little girl is build about her a world of simplicity, humility, service. Try to show her how much of her future happiness in life depends de-pends upon herself, depends upon just how much goodness and unselfishness unself-ishness she can plant in her own soul. Point out to her the wreckage that is so often the life story of -a beautiful, rich, independent woman, wom-an, and the very real joy that fills the life of the wife and mother who may, indeed, say to herself that she can't cure the ills of the world. But that what she can do is keep these few who love her this tired man, these children, this old father and mother, these friends, glad that she is alive. Many a wealthy and beautiful woman never has heard anyone come home to say the things this humbler, more serene, more needed and beloved woman hears day after day. "Mother, you're home, oh, goodyl You take awful good care of your tired old husband, Mary. Nobody ever had a daughter like you, Mary. You do it, Mary you bring it you break the news to her you cook it for us you be there you take care of me. Mother." It is of such homely stuff as that that the heart's true ecstasies are made. If we can give our children that formula, beauty and wealth can be relegated to fifth place, tenth place, no place at all. |