OCR Text |
Show Kathleen Norris Says: The Woman in His Office Bell Syndicate WNU Features. vr ''MnAiAi W?M TAe cottage we have been renting is in a nice quiet part of town, with a vegetable garden, a few fruit trees and an old mill that is our children's playground" By KATHLEEN NORRIS FROM Flint, Michigan, comes the following letter. let-ter. It typifies a situation that isn't entirely unusual, and outlines a problem that is so important, that I give it in full. "My husband and I have been married nine years; we are both 33," writes Edna Lee. "We had an income of $1,100 a year when our oldest son was born, in the following . five years three other boys followed, my husband's pay rising slowly in that time to about $2,600, on which I managed man-aged to keep a comfortable home, feed my man and my boys, and keep well and out of debt. My babies were born in semi-private rooms at the local hospital; I have never had regular household help, but Ed's mother lived with us until her second sec-ond marriage, four years ago. "Two years ago Ed got a better job; he has risen steadily in these busy times and how is getting a little more than five thousand a year. The cottage we had been renting is in a nice quiet part of town, with a vegetable garden, a few fruit trees and sheds and an old windmill that are the children's playground. I began be-gan to make payments on it more than a year ago, and within a few months we will own it outright. "My problem is this: All these years Ed has been a quiet, devoted husband. He said from the beginning begin-ning that he wanted only sons, and I felt I was fortunate that our children chil-dren were boys, but when David was born two years ago Ed expressed great disappointment and has never been as fond of the child as he is of the others. About a year ago a very attractive girl, now 21, became his stenographer, and took it upon herself to call upon me and tell me that she and Ed were devoted to each other, but that I might put my mind at rest as there was 'nothing wrong' going on. "When I taxed Ed with this he laughed and said that she was just romancing, but later he talked to me of her as if he was glad to dwell on the subject. I could see that she fascinated him and I immediately suspected why he was so often obliged to stay late at the office. Blother Busy at Home. "That truly didn't annoy me. I had a beautiful baby to play with, three splendid little boys to train and love, and my time was more than full. From David's six o'clock wail to seven-o'clock goodnight kisses and prayers 13 hours later I never have one moment's peace, and I love it. My housework never gets monotonous because I am continually con-tinually trying new systems and making small changes, perhaps putting put-ting the boys' supper table in another an-other corner, or trying out on them clothes that don't show dirt and don't have to be ironed. I am a good cook, and Ed's main complaint is that he is putting on weight. "But nothing pleases him any more. He won't have even breakfast break-fast in the kitchen. He's 'sick of babble about kids.' He wonders why I don't do my hair differently. I think he often stops afternoons at her house the stenographer's house for sandwiches and a drink, for I smell the liquor on his breath, and his appetite for dinner is not what it was. He wants nothing but steaks and chops, and calls noodles or macaroni 'wop food,' and won't eat them. I give him one mammoth cup of coffee every morning, as I have never wanted more than half a cup; he frets over limitation. "What I'm writing about however is this: There is to be a company dinner and dance in about three AN OLD STORY It's an old, old story, this one about the girl in the office to whom your husband turns for the companionship you, can't give him because you're too busy being a good wife and mother. And the answer is still the same. It's always the "other woman" who loses, if you remember re-member that everyone else is on your side. Kathleen Norris has told other wives to be sweet, dignified and cheerful, and she offers that advice this week to "Edna Lee," whose husband has forgotten for the moment that home is where he belongs. weeks, and Ed has to be there. I did not want to go; I haven't the dress; I'm out of that mood. When he told me of it he said: 'I know you hate those long talky dinners, so I told them to count you out.' Now I learn that he is taking Dorothy. Something simply seethes within me when I think of it. I stay at home cooking, washing, caring for small children all day long, and Dorothy, sweet and fresh, goes out with my husband at night. "Ed cuts me to the heart by indicating indi-cating that our days of dancing, companionship, sharing of pleasures, are over. But doesn't a department boss hurt himself, too, when his friends learn that it is his stenographer stenogra-pher who is with him? What is the wise thing to do for us all? If I'm wrong tell me so." - Husband Needs Prodding;. That is the letter. The answer ought, of course, to be sent to Ed. It's about time that some of the Eds of this world found out that the raising rais-ing of a family is, first, the most important job in the world, for man or woman, and second, that it is one of the hardest. Any man whose wife has given him four children, and whose means are not sufficient to give her adequate help with all that she has to do, should be in a continual con-tinual attitude of sympathetic helpfulness help-fulness and tacit apology. Edna, who wrote that eloquent letter, is too fine a woman to rail at him, to remind him that other women have leisure and cars and servants and dignity in their lives. She loves her slavery to the nursery; she brightens bright-ens the drudgery of her days with innovations, experiments, fun. But it is slavery and drudgery just the same. Some day her sons will repay her. Some day four splendid, vital Boy Scouts will be pointed out, in her town, "those are the Lee boys all together there." Some day, when they are all in school, just blissful rest just freedom to walk uptown or lie down with a book for an hour, will be so sweet to her that she won't regret these years that taught her the miracle of freedom. Meanwhile, since Ed is bent upon destroying the devotion between them, and throwing away his paternal pater-nal influence in these baby years when it must be established if it is to be established at all, my advice to Edna is just to ignore him for awhile. Let him go his way. If Dorothy can't do better than to pick a married man, father of four small boys, as a beau, she can't be much of a siren. Sometimes the healthiest attitude a wife can take is to burst out laughing at these affairs, and instead of whimpering "What do you see in her?" ask "What on earth does she see in YOU?" Worrying will accomplish nothing and will only anger Ed, whose conscience con-science is probably troubled anyway. any-way. Don't beg for what you want, but make him see that you can give him what he really wants. |