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Show J Dorothy Dix Talks H PARENTS AND CHILDREN : By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer j Iln an amusing satire, In which ho throws a thousand fantastic lights upon the relationship between parents and children, George Bernard Shaw makes the father in the play declare that the time will come when no child will know who Its parents are, and no parents will know their own children., Then, he says, there will be a chance for parents and children to be friends .when they meet. As it is now there is ia wall ten feet thick between them that neither can break through. Of course the Shavian point of view is always a humorously exaggerated one, but it is true that between most parents and children there is a well ten feet thick that they can neither break through nor climb over, and if most fathers and mothers and children would tell the truth, they would admit that there is nobody else on earth with whom they feel so Jittle acquainted acquaint-ed as with those who are flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone. What Is this bar that so tragically separates parents and children and so often makes any real intimacy or com-plonship com-plonship between them impossible? It isn't a matter or lack of affection I or of neglect on the parents' part, be-1 cause you see this want of companion-' ship just as often in households where the parents have sacrificed themselves for their children and slaved for them as you do in the households where the children have been brought up by nurses and governesses and tutors. Indeed, In-deed, the wail "my children never tell me anything, I am not in their confidence," confi-dence," is never so bitter as from the lint? nf nnrnnlr- ml.n Un 1 : 1 1 shipped their offspring. It is not a matter of disparity of 5ge. Father is on chummy terms with Snalf a dozen boys the age of his own son who are in his office. He can joke with them and tell them stories and discuss with them every topic from a batting record to the temptations tempta-tions that lie in wait for every young man. Cut when he is left alone for half an hour with his own boy they haven't a word to say to each other, and are embarrassed and ill at ease, and one or the other makes a sneak of It at the first opportunity. It Isn't because mother is old that daughter never tells her any of the shy little secrets of her heart, and what the boy who brought her home from the dancing class said to her or she said to him. She babbles these confidences fast enough to some other woman, mother's age, on whom she has a school girl crush. Nor is it because be-cause mother is so much older than daughter that she cannot bring herself her-self to talk to daughter about the things that every mother should tell a girl. Mother can discuss the most intimate problems of womanhood with every other girl except her own. Self-Conccit Is Cause, p What, then, is this mysterious wall made of that so tragically and lerri- Iniy separates parents anu cniiuren ; I think that it is made of tho adamantine, ada-mantine, colossal self-conceit of parents. The vanity of parents makes them pose before their children as oracles and little tin gods, and while you may reverence and oven abstractly love a , superior being, you can't possibly pal with one. You haven't any tie of human kinship with it. You haven't the nerve to even expect one who has always been perfect and never made mistakes or had silly yearnings for foolish things to sympathize with your m own faults and weaknesses. H It is because parents put themselves 3H up on self-erected pedestals instead of ,K staying down on the ground where jV their children are that there is so little companionship between them. It is a pathetic and a curious fact Hf that human egotism finds its ultimate expression in parenthood, The first B thing that fathers and mothers do aw when a child is born is to explore the poor little red countenance for a trace of their own lineaments, and they are overjoyed when they find out that they have wished on the unfortunate little creature their own nose, or mouth, or eyes, or chin, regardless of how ugly these features may be. Then they are determined to dominate domi-nate their child's life, to mould its opinions, decide Its destiny, no matter even If their own lives have been failures that, showed thnt they lacked Intelligence and judgment. Other people peo-ple may think me dull and stupid and a poor manager, says the father or mother Inwardly, but I am determined that my child shall ndmjre me and reverence me as an oracle. Therefore father assumes tho attitude atti-tude of one who has always been a model of all the virtues, and who has never for an instant strayed from the straight and narrow path. He might boast to other yotfng men that in his time he has been one of the boys, but he never comes down from his high plane with hi6 own boy and tells him i that he, too,has made a fool of himself him-self many a time over a pretty face, and drunk too much, and lost money that he couldn't afford In a poker game. Loses Boy's Confidence. And the price he pays for his self-righteous self-righteous hypocrisy is his boy's confidence, confi-dence, because the boy, aware of his own frailties, feels that he has got nothing in common with this super man who is his father, and dares not tell of his own skidding from the high road. And the girls meets the same diffi culty wun moiuer. xuoiner aiso reels it necessary to wrap herself in angel robes and pretend that she never flirted or made eyes at a man, or let anybody kiss her or hold her hand, or did anything but sit up prim and proper In the bright light, close by her chaperon's side. Mama is so good she wouldn't understand, under-stand, says the girl to herself, and so she carefully hides from mother all of her ioolish little love affairs, and finds it more impossible to tell mother the things she really thinks and feels than she would to confide them to any other woman on earth. Another bar between parents and children is the Incredible conceit that makes parents think their way the only way and that they have a right to make their children follow their scheme of life, no matter what the child's own inclinations and talents are. Whenever you hear a man speak of his son as an ungrateful young dog who has no appreciation of the sacrifices sacri-fices a parent makes, in nine cases out of ten you will find that tho boy has merely refused to be clay in tho hands of the paternal father and has asserted his own right to live his own life. "John has broken my heart," a father will declare, "I had built up ! this big grocery business for him and ' sjinpiy iiiiiiuu ins uacK on it ami ' studied medicine. Said he'd rattier' starve as a doctor doing what he liked than make a million selling snlt codfish." cod-fish." "Mary is such a disappointment to me,' a mother will weep. "I was a belle when I was a girl, and I had always al-ways looked forward to the time when Mary would make a great splash in society, and I had her so carefully educated for a society career, and all she will do is to study and devote herself her-self to what she calls uplift work. We haven't a single thing In common." And there you are. Perhaps there is no easy solution of this problem, but one thing Is certain: If this wall between parents and children is ever broken down it will be by parents dropping the attitude of demigods towards to-wards their children and meeting them on a common plane of humanity. |