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Show If Dorothy Dix Talks j SLACKER MOTHERHOOD ( By DOROTHY Dl.X. I!,t. World's Higlwst I'm.l YVomnn Writer j A ricli woman with her two big, husky, grown up sons has just been arrested ar-rested here as the three of them were sneaking off to South America to try to evade the draft law. ' The woman gave as her excuse for her conduct that her mother love was so great that it outweighed everything else on earth and that thje thought of i her boys living in fikhy trenches, suf-j suf-j fering cold, hunger and other privations; priva-tions; being possibly shot, mangled or killed, was more than she could have endured. Beside that fear, every ideal or honor and patriotism, of justice and right, paled into significance. AncJ the slacker sons of a slacker mother said that the reason that they they were leaving the job of defending defend-ing their country to other men was because they couldn't bear to grieve their precious mother. It is lucky for America that there art; jiul many sucji moulds as tins in ; the length and breadth of the land. Otherwise there would have been no khaki heroes to stand at the bridge at ; Chateau Thierry, and turn back the hosts of the Huns, and In this country we would hnve known all the horrors that Belgium and France have suffered. suf-fered. The great mass of American mothers moth-ers have shown the mettle of the Spartan Spar-tan mothers of old. They have sent their sons away with a smile to fight and die. if need be, for God and country, coun-try, and they have seen the high faith and courage in which they have reared their boys bloom in such deeds as has made the whole world gasp in amaze- ; nient. For as the mother is, so is the son. Just as the slacker mother breeds-breeds breeds-breeds slacker sons, so the brave mother moth-er roars brave sons. Just as the mother moth-er who brings up her son to put his ; own selfish good and safety before ev- I erythlng else on earth rears a profit-$ profit-$ eer, or a draft dodger, so the mother i- who keeps the flaming ideal of patriot- ism and duty always before her son's eyes, rears the men who is ready to-make to-make any sacrifice on the altar of his country'. This woman who was not willing that her sons should do a man's part, J and bear their share of the common burden of war, says that she loves her sons better than do these other mothers moth-ers who have sent their boys to the trenches. Such a speech is almost blasphemous, blas-phemous, for the weak, pusillanimous, flabby souls who have not the strength to suffer and endure never really love anything but their own personal ease and comfort. ' They are incapable of the passion of selfless devotion that the brave hearted and high minded feel for those whom they love. "I could not love I thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more," is the eternal cry of those who have the vision to sec that even love must be founded on something higher and greater than mere selfish physical possession, and that afterthis war is over the tic between millions of mothers moth-ers and sons will be closer and more beautiful than it ever was before, because be-cause each will revere in the other a dauntless spirit, and the stuff of which heroes are made. This incident of the slacker, mother who has made her sons slackers, calls attention again to a fact that we are apt to overlook, nnd that Is that mother moth-er love can mar as well as make, and be as powerful for evil as it can be for good. Curiously enough women do not seem to realize this. The majority of mothers seem to think that if they love their children enough it excuses any narm mat iney may do them. "I love my children so well I just can't bear to punish them," a woman will say by way of excuse for raising up a brood of hoodlums.' "I love my children so I just can't deny, thprn anything," any-thing," a mother will explain In justifying justi-fying herself for letting her babies gorge themselves on candy until they are sick. "I love my children so I can't force them to go to school when they hate it," a mother will tell you in explanation of her boys and girls growing up without education. "I once heard a young man curse his mother because she had not had his club foot straightened when he was a child, and so saved him from being a cripple. "JJut I was so tender to you I could not endure the thought of" an operation, and of you having to wear a brace on your dear little leg," she wailed, "I loved you so!" "Love!" he mocked her, "it would have been bet- I f fr fnr mr lmrl vnn TinfnM io nnl lnnn your duty by me." And the young man "was right. The love that weakens us is crueller than hate. The love that has- not the courage cour-age to fight with us for what is best in us, and to hold us up to doing our duty, is no blessing but a curse to us. We do not recognize our mental and spiritual deformities as quickly as we do our physical ones, but the lame boy who cursed his mother for his maimed body that she could have made straight if she had had the strength to do her duly by him in his childhood, has his prototype among the myriads I of the men and women who are failures fail-ures in life. They could have been cured of the faults and weaknesses that have wrecked them if only in I their youth their mothers had had the. strength to control them. But their mothers loved them too well to make them do the hard things. Weak, selfish, slacker mother love! It is a thing over which the angels in Heaven must weep. |