MOTHERS AGAIN

Hokitika Guardian, 31 December 1925, Page 4

MOTHERS AGAIN

Is it possible that the reaction which we are being assured on all sides has set in on (lie other side of the world against the after-war independence <;! the young is being felt in Australia (asks an Australian writer). It sounds

almost too astonishing to be true, yet 1 here are indisputable signs of it. Within the last few weeks announcements have been made of the approaching departure for England of several Victorian girls, and their mothers, “f wish my girl had finished school two years ago, for then she could have gone alone." at least two of the mothers were heard to say when questioned as to why the twcnty-ycnr-old girl of today could not go alone as the girl did who was twenty two or three years ago. Tt was explained by the parents that travelling alone was one of the things that no girl under 2 Q could do nowadays. Mothers are in fashion again, it would .seem, for "1 hate to go out without mother” is just as often heard to-day as were the assertions of complete independence a few years hack. Lady Rurnliatn, who was a delegate to the recent Imperial Press Conlereiice, said that the spirit of uncontrolled independence which was a feature of girlhood during the war, was waning in England. Since then another well known woman has said the same tiling, and they are, both ol them, women who go to the root of things. While they both expressed admiration for what the "war girls” did. they said that in England the reaction was felt not so much by those armed with what used to he called " parental authority" as by the young girls Ihciilstdves. They now realise that there is much more sympathy and pleasure to be gained by assuming the attitude of daughters in the home than by resenting that domestic interest, which the impetuosity of youth has. since the war. usually regarded as interference. Of course, the artificiality of the midYietoi ian a tmosohei e. when ".Mamma” was often an autocrat whose word was law with or without reason, inis been swept away by common sense, and most, woman have now acquired a broad and

••nlight. n ■ ! 0 •••.point. Perhaps tha !• vby girls are be.-oinin ' < nr, luoie amelia Me in reason, ami vvlr ii'ni'ois ale again "in fashion.”