Show kathleen norris says time heals all wounds bell syndicate service I 1 esz I 1 W 41 ted s mother came to stay with us and ran me out we lit hied ed at an army post and I 1 became intimate aith an army officer who was a married man I 1 I 1 aas carried auay abay by his devotion to a lonely girt by KATHLEEN NORRIS NE of the hardest lessons 0 ONE for an american woman to learn is to leave anything to time we are an impatient people and whatever we do must be accomplished in a very fury of speed hundreds of women go to reno for divorces every year only to plunge into fresh matrimonial experiments the moment they are free decisions that should be made only after months or even years of planning and praying they reach in a few moments having failed conspicuously in one attempt at wifehood they plunge into another sure that if happiness wait on one pathway it must on some other but happiness and character and success in marriage are things of slow growth they are never ready made it takes months and sometimes years of patient effort tp work out even the simplest domestic problem and in these days almost no marcial marital problem is simple impatience and marriage never mix threats of european conquest and invasion from sea or air have never given me a moments concern but the destruction of that alli all i important thing american marriage through the hasty and ill considered action of husbands and wives who flock to divorce courts at the first sign of trouble is a real blow at the safety of the nation divorce Is an evil divorce is not a solution it is an unmitigated evil and it ought to be used sparingly like the poisonous drugs that help pain or the surgeons knife that is employed only in the last emergency unless this national failing is somewhat lessened we are going to be a nation without homes and a nation without homes is no nation at all it hurt children to grow up in the care of a mother who is silently enduring difficulties and injustices iusti ces it hurts them irreparably to be told by their mother that daddy is a bad man and by dad dys mother that their own mother is so selfish and vain that poor daddy had to leave her in the beginning the men and komeh women who contemplate divorce always assert eagerly that there will not be this sort of criticism before the children but when those children missing their father shifted uncomfortably about trying to accustom themselves to a stepfather ask wistfully why their own daddy has gone away then mother has to take a defensive attitude so she tells them how mean daddy was to her give her any money and liked another lady better than mummy and twisted t her arm and when they tell their paternal grandmother this she can only counter majestically well mummy always say true dear she was very unkind to poor daddy dont believe everything mummy says the army of the children of divorced parents the army we ought to fear what possible training in self control consideration patience can they derive from the ill disciplined man and woman they call their parents and how find happiness against a background of changes recriminations charges and countercharges counter charges HOME DEFENSE far more terrifying than the possibility of invasion by a foreign army says kathleen norris ris is the menace of divorce which is breaking up our homes more sinister than hitler s legions is the army of children of divorced parents but how are we to prevent t divorce divor ceP patience will help impatience is probably our greatest national tv weakness we leap from one mistake to another we ice plunge Z into ill cons considered marriage and hasty divorce don t fail to read kathleen norris uncompromising discussion of the part women can play in building one of our first lines of national defense happy homes here is a letter from a woman who has made a series of hasty mistakes and who feels that to make a fresh series would be the way out 1 I am 28 writes embee em bee from indianapolis 1 I was married at 19 and have two sons seven and four that first marriage was a girls mistake ted seemed to me the epitome of everything that was wonderful but I 1 was too much of a kid really to judge a man as a husband we were miserable from the start quarreling making it up quarreling again one of my babies was delicate and the other unmanageable age able and we had very little money beds teds mother came to stay with us and ran things generally she ran them so well that she ran me out and I 1 went home to my stepmother as I 1 cannot stand the man my own mother married after divorcing my father we lived at an army post and I 1 became intimate with an officer who was a married man I 1 dont excuse this but I 1 was carried away by his devotion to a lonely bewildered girl of 24 this gave ted an excuse to ask for complete guardianship of the boys which was granted him floyds wife divorced him and we were married ted died last december and his mother has my boys they come to see me now and then but we are strangers my husband does not understand how a mother feels about her children we have been married three years and as yet I 1 have no hope of another child teds beds mother who is well fixed says she is going to take the boys to another city and place them in school and floyd feels that that is a good thing tor for them but they are mine mine mine and I 1 win will not have them carted about as if they had no mother cant help her on the other hand we have only floyds pay not sufficient ent for the many expenses connected with two growing boys I 1 feel strongly th that t I 1 have made many rn mistakes ista kes m in handling my life and am anxious not to make any more what do you think of my present plan of going to reno for a divorce asking an alimony that will permit me to learn a profession that will support my children and suing my mother in law for or their custody does that seem the best thing embee em bee is not speaking honestly when she says this nor when she speaks of a mothers feeling for her children having broken up her own life and floyds and teds beds and the childrens no advice will save he her r now from crashing ahead into further mistakes |