Show Dorothy Dix Talks MODERN YOUNG PEOPLE ARE SO WELL WORTH KNOWING IT WOULD PAY FATHER AND MOTHER TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH THEIR OWN CHILDREN IF ONLY TO ENLARGE THEIR THEIRa 0 a CIRCLE OF AGREEABLE FRIENDS SAYS DOROTHY DIX Pr lIE thing that astounds mo Is how parents know their chit dren In most families the tho father end and mother have havo barely a casual speaking acquaintance with their boys and girls There is no intimacy between them and they really know no more of what their youngsters are arc thinking ot of what they are doing of their plans and hopes and andI I aspirations than If they wore utter strangers and that they were meeting for the first time In L Of course parents will rise In a body I- I and deny this What they will cry out not know the child they have been with every day of Its life The Idea i Is r absurd Why dont don't they put their children through a questionnaire every time they leave the house about what h to do and whom they going they are lire A are going to tee see and so on Why their v childrens children's minds minas are Just open books 4 to them And then they go on to tell tellus tellus us UI that their children are this or that DOROTHY DIX and that hat they dont don't drink or smoke or pet and we smile cynically knowing their children better than they do and having Information to the contrary T IS a mystery how bow it U Is possible for any two fairly intelligent adult IT I human beings to 10 live in tho the house with a child from the time It Is Isborn Isborn Isborn born until It U is 17 r IS 18 years old without ever eyer getting to know It well enough to be able to form any estimation of Its Us tastes and aptitudes yet this Is la what happens In the average family When Johnny and Susie reach the age when they mutt must choose their life work and turn to father and mother for guid gud guidance ance ante the parents throw threw up impotent hands hand In despair They cannot help the boy and girl at the most important crisis of their lives because they are not sufficiently well acquainted with them to what know know What hat they can do Isn't it considering that list their mothers' mothers and fathers fathers' hearts QUEER Q are bound up in their childrens children's welfare You would tU Ucc c that from tho the time Johnny and Susie were little squirming red bundles In the he cradle that their parents would have been probing Into their little minds to see what was there watching their development v notIe their every onry characteristic so that they could at least give their boys and girls a II start on the road to success by help help- helpIng helpIng helping Ing them to make the most of the tho gifts gUts that hat the tho good God Goll had hall be be- bestowed bestowed bestowed stowed upon them But nothing of the kind happens Mother and father have never got rot well enough h acquainted with Johnny to know that he has haa a magnetic personality which would make him a crack- crack crackerjack crackerJack salesman TJ they let l t him blunder along into being a class second bookkeeper They dont don't know Tom well enough to have found Sound out that he is a mechanical genius and so he takes take the first job clerking that comes to hand They have never even noticed that Sam is a bookworm boo worm or that May Is la a wizard with a needle or that Julia Is a born teacher or that Mauds Maud's brains are in her heels and so when their children ask them What must we do What career must we follow they reply as they the might to a dunce Clance met acquaintance Wo We Wedo do not know ORSE Il ORSE still atm parents dont don't take lake this tho trouble to get well enough ac ac- acquainted ac- ac acI W WORSE I with their children to find out how to manage them 1 ney do lIO not study the childs child's psychology and learn how to deal with its Individual peculiarities They go on the assumption that childhood hood hoodIs is Just a batch of or dough that they tan lan thump into any sort of ot shape shapo they desire which is 13 why there ate aie 01 e so 60 many wany wayward children and I so EO many heart broken parents For any child can be managed If you go about It In the right way out DUt you ou have to know something about its temper and temperament and how it reacts to certain modes of treat treatment ment Its It's folly toll to think you can cats bring bong up all children by the same rule of ot thumb Some have to be driven with a light rein Others ridden with a curb world Is strewn with the wrecks ot of men and aud women whose THE T lives were ruined because their parents did not know them well enough to handle them strung High-strung girls and boys who were driven away from home by petty pelly tyrannies Sensitive shy boys and girls who were made morbidly distrustful of themselves by nagging crit crit- God given geniuses who had hall their fires tres put out upon the altar because father and mother did not approve of a girl going on the stage or singing in public and thought painting or writing no job lob for a real man Boys Hoys who aho ho might have been successes If it they had bad been permit permit- permitted ted to follow sollow their own inclinations turned turne into failures by being forced into something they the were never intended to do Girls thwarted at every turn In their own desire desiro de ro for self-expression self turned into sour old maids or else married men whom they did dill not love in a desper desper- desperate ate effort to achieve a n little freedom What tragedies could be avoided If only parents were well enough with their children to know their pos pea possibilities and limitations their virtues and their faults their strength and their weakness so that they might know how to encourage the timid child and judiciously suppress egotism In the conceited one how to get the plodder Into some lome line of ot work in which faithful service will pay and turn the rest rest- restless restless less Isa of those who cannot endure dull monotony to some task tack that will give variety and Intrigue them by pre pre- presenting presenting presenting some eternally new problem for tor their solving COURSE it is principally the childrens children's loss when their parents OP OF O refuse to get acquainted with wills them because their fathers and mothers could help them hens so much it If they only knew them could save savo them s so o many bitter mistakes But Dut It Is ix I tho the parents' parents loss also be be- because because because cause they must suffer in their childrens children's misfortune and they miss so 50 much soul satisfying companionship As Aa things exist now the average boy and girl are tongue tongue- tied In their parents parents' presence They find less to talk about to father and mother than they do to the man and woman to whom they have only been Introduced that Instant and they could easier confide their hopes and plans to the Individual they thy sit lit next to on the street car than they could to their par par- ants Ints That Is II one reason why young oung people are never willing willingto to stay atay at home of an evening They are bored to death with the strangers who have hive authority over ever them but nothing In common with them YET ET they are entertaining these young oung people they are gay ga and In In- Intelligent Y and witty willy and have havo novel and stimulating views about bout life lICe They are arc so 80 well worth knowing that hat it would pay father and mother soother to get gel acquainted with their own children If It only to enlarge their circle of or agreeable friends DOROTHY DIX Copyright by Public Ledger |