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Show Kathleen Norris Says: What's Wrong With Daughters, Asks Dad Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. JPL 111 fflftl "Fran, one the twins, was married two years when she came home with m baby boy, couldn't stand Phil a minute longer." By KATHLEEN NORRIS HERE is a letter from the father of three girls. It would make me laugh, with its peppery dissatisfaction, if it did not come nearer to making me cry. "What the heck is the matter mat-ter with v girls nowadays?" asks Paul McAllister. "My wife and I had three we wanted a boy, of course, but we got three pretty, active girls, who grew up to keep the place in an uproar with their dates and their clothes and their boy friends. There wasn't a day for five or six years that someone didn't want a dress,- or to give a party, or was crying over some invitation that didn't come through or some boy who didn't like her. "That was bad enough. Then all three married; the little one first and the twins at a double wedding a year later. That set me back about five grand, but no matter the girls were settled. "Settled! My gosh, they don't know the meaning of the word. Fran, one of the twins, was married mar-ried two years when.,, she came home with a baby boy, couldn't stand Phil a minute longer. Eight months later Barbara landed back on us; she has no child. We thought she would marry again, but that was five years ago, and she hasn't. "Now, six years married, with two little girls, Eleanor is home. Well, there's some excuse there. Her husband Is lazy, doesn't make any money, says he is tubercular and wants to live out on the desert. Discordant Household. , "Fran gets a hundred .a month alimony and gives her mother 30. Barbara gets 300 and says she'll go on this way forever, partly to spite Ross. Here we all are, mother, father, three daughters, three small children, and a good deal of refined arguing and criticizing goes on we're too big a family, that's the truth. The girls cry over their marital mari-tal troubles, blame each other, make up surely this isn't the way people Ought to live, one old man and a lot of detached women who don't have homes or husbands! Eleanor has no money to spend, and talks of a job. Barbara is pretty pret-ty well pleased with her settlement settle-ment and her freedom from responsibility, respon-sibility, and the contrast makes it hard for the other girls. It's the darndest situation I ever saw. They help, of course, and we all love the kids, but it means that my wife, getting on in years now, is running a family boarding-house. "Aren't marriages supposed to stick any longer? Barbara hasn't got a thing against Ross; Eleanor might have gone out with her sick husband to Arizona and stayed with him to the end; Fran says now that Phil who has married again Is one of the finest men she ever knew. I've known folks who weren't married who stuck to each other a lot better than this. "Rents and housing shortages in our town make it impossible for any of them to find inexpensive apartments anywhere. Our house is roomy and comfortable, and Barbara Bar-bara talks of building on a big room for herself when it is possible. But a house with three young wives in It and no young husbands seems to me pretty queer. The girls ages are only 24, 24 and 22. This could go on for a long time. I'm not sure Hm claims to be tubercular . . I I that I want your advice," this letter let-ter ends, "but I want sympathy, lots ofNit." You have it, Paul. But don't forget for-get that much of the responsibility for this situation rests with you and with your wife. These girls were not brought up to a realization oi the seriousness of marriage, and the danger of the delusion that divorce di-vorce is an escape from its inconveniences. incon-veniences. They felt, as young wives, that marriage was like a school, or a houce, or a hat. If you don't like it, change it. Don't put up with the inevitable disappointments disappoint-ments and disillusionments thai are part of even the happiest marriage. mar-riage. Just get out, the way you'd get out of a job that suppressed anc displeased you. Can't Get Out Painlessly. Marriage isn't like that. Its roots go deep deep into a woman's life. She cannot tear them up' anc throw them aside without injuring many lives, especially her own. Years ago I knew a girl named Elsie. She married at 18 with th statement that she didn't care foi Herb, but she wanted to be mar ried at 18. At 27 she had been sever years divorced, had grown older wiser, better. She fell in love, while on an ocean voyage, with the sor of a distinguished, conventional wealthy Baltimore family. Thej were married and went to his hom where she was cordially wel corned. No one knew of her divorci until one night, at a dinner party her first husband appeared, drunl and truculent. The episode wa: passed over somehow, but her baby born too soon as a result of agita tion, died. There never has beer another child. Don't blame the girls, Paul Blame the parents who didn't trail them to be strong women and goo( wives. |