WOMAN'S PAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1931, Page 2

WOMAN'S PAGE

MOTHERS WHO FAIL

Tlie Victorian mother did her duty by her daughters. She dressed them, ciiaperoned them, and married them off to the best of her ability and their good looks. It is true her methods lacked finesse, but Caroline, Emma, and Maud were truly iond of dear mamma, states Lady Ingram. Women congratulate themselves on being tar more enlightened nowadays, but is the modern mother, from her daughter’s point oi view, always an improvement on the Victorian brand? 1 doubt it! I know, for instance, a woman who has a son and a daughter. The other day she showed nie with pride her boy’s prize poem, which had been published in the school magazine. ‘‘You are lucky to have two such talented children,” I said, rather pointedly. She stared at m e in suprise. She had not- even heard that her daughter had won a scholarship at the Royal College of Music. “How secretive ol Joan,” she said, complainingly, ‘“she knows quite well I do not approve oi her strumming. It always upsets Peter when he is trying to write!” Could anything be more grossly unfair? Yet this mother is typical of a large class of women who lavish affection on their sons, take no interest in their daughters, and then declare that boys are so much easier to manage than girls!

A young friend of mine has just gob engaged to be married. She is 18, her fiance is 42. They seem to have little in common. “Are you sure Charles is really the right man ?” I asked. “He is. if J don’t want to die an old maid,” she replied, bitterly. “Mother frightens away any boy who comes to the house. You see they come only to see me. Charles has sense enough to make up to mother, too!” Modern mothers of the Ever-Young Brigade are always spoiling their daughters’ chances by their unwillingness to take a back seat. They cling to a lingering conviction that mother knows best what is good for a girl. 'I his is a moot point, for the girls of to-dav have ;t set of completely changed values. Security and comfort do not attract them in tiie least. They believe that life can be truly lived through new sensations; they want to learn only by their _ own experience. Present-day mothers fail to cope with their daughters because they do not face these facts. Behind the modern girl’s armour of selfsufficiency there is a craving for love and sympathy. However modern sue may be, she keeps tucked away somewhere the image of an ideal mother; not a mother who wants to be “all girls together,” and manages to grab the best of everything* that is going; nor a mother who stands coldly aloof from everything she does not take an interest in herself. The mother who is always there with a helping hand, who is human and makes allowances, who knows and understands without fussing and asking questions—the jnqthor ih fact, with true love and sympathy—has no failures with her daughters.

MY HUSBAND. WHY I QUARREL WITH HIM. 1. He will ring up a quarter of an hour before I expect him home to say he is bringing one of the directors of the firm, and will I make a good show of it to impress him. Or, just when I have his favourite dinner cooking, he rings up to say he has to stay at the office till eight, and will I keep something warm for him. 2 He will silently reprove me for what he calls my untidiness by putting away my book, m y sewing and everything that is mine so that I spend hours looking for them. I like to find my things where I left them; when you have been shopping or cooking or minding a baby all day you want to flop into a chair for five minutes with your book and 'cigarette without having to trot into another room to find them “in the proper place.”

3. He will want me to go out just on the very evening that baby seems fretful, or I have jam to make, or sewing to get ready for the needlework woman who is coming for the day tomorrow. Why doesn’t he take my job as seriously as I take his ? I never ask him to stay away from the office to take me out, do I? 4. He will arrive home with some new gadget for the house that has cost him pounds just when I am aching with the worry of thinking how to buy new curtains. If lie wants to give me surprises like that, why not be sufficiently interested in the house to know that I need curtains and haven’t the faintest interest in a patent washingup machineP Why does her 5. He will come in and play with hahv just when he should be going to bed. Why couldn't he get up halfand hour earlier and play when baby is awake and longing to be played with, instead of exciting him so that, I can t get him to settle for hours? And why does he talk portentously about the tiny naughty things, the children do just at night when they are tired not expected to be on their best behaviour, when I have been coping with them, good and bad, all day? 6. He will conin'a ui to me about everything the maid, the tradesman or the children clo wrong. T cannot help it if Mary does not black the instep of his hoots, if Jimmy throws the towel on the bathroom floor, and the newsboy sends the wrong paper. Why doesn’t he scold them direct, instead of j scolding me* and expecting me to pass it on ?

LEROY I Wuled

7. He will get me to the station and everywhere else lialf-an-hour early, and he won’t let me go and take a lyst look at baby and make sure the cap is not shut in with the bird, and that the bathroom taps are not dripping, when we set out, with the consequences that I am worrying all the time I am out. — By a wife in an Exchange. DRESS ALLOWANCES. WHAT IS ADEQUATE FIGURE? Few women, more especially in thesq times of economic stress, will be found to agree with the woman in Mr Justice McCardie’s court (London), who suggested that £SOO a year was an appropriate sum for the wife of a man with an income of £2OOO to spend on dress. Even though he werer the kind of man who was resigned, as the judge indicated so many husbands have to be, to riding third class, dissensions and open rupture would certainly ensue. In a recent discussion by a number of well-dressed women on the subject, the highest sum suggested as a suitable proportion of the £2OOO was £2OO, and the general feel of the assembly ran to an even lower figure, If the woman wonted a fur coat she must just save up for jt, A Amman of good social position—the wife of a diplomat, in fact—recently gave it as her opinion that any woman with good taste and a gift for managing money should be able to dress quite well on £IOO a year.

Mr Justice McCardie is a bachelor. Possibly the reason may be found in the many tales of wifely, extravagance which come up for hearing in his court.

Princess Helen of Rumania, the former wjfe of King Carol) is in danger of going blind (says the Daily Herald). An illustration from which she has suffered lately threatens her sight,' and she has arrived in Paris to consult three famous oculists., She •is to receive special treatment in the hope that she will have recovered sufficiently to return to Rumania to see her son, Prince Michael, heir to the throne, on his birthday. Princess Helen, who was in London last month, is the most tragic royal personage m Europe. She was forced' jnto exile by the King’s infatuation for the redhaired Jewess, Mine. Lupeseu.

THIS WEEK’S RECIPES. NEW WAY TO SERVE APPLES. Here are some new ways of serving apples:—• Frosted Apples. *> Peel and core a pound of cooking apples. Melt six ounces of sugar in baif-a-pint of water, and boil for five minutes before adding the apples. Cook carefully until they are tender, but see that they are kept whole; then drain** them and place on a greased baking sheet. Make a meringue with the whites of two eggs and four ounces of powdered sugar, cover the apples with the mixture, and bake in a very slow oven to set and brown slightly. ** * * Apple Sago. Peel, core, and slice four rather small apples and place at the bottom ■of a greased fireproof dish. Wash an ounce and a half of fine sago, mix it with a pint of milk and an ounce of sugar, and pour over the apples. Add an ounce of butter, cut in small pieces and bake in a moderate oven for two hours. Stir the pudding from time tQ time, and half an hour before it is wanted add a little more milk to make a fresh skin, and let it finish undisturbed. ** * * Apple Foam. Line a glass dish with sliced sponge cake. Make a custard with half a pint of milk, two egg yolks, and an ounce of sugar, and let it cool. Bake four apples rub them through a sieve, and add four ounces of sugar, the grated rind and juice of a lemon. Whip two egg whites stiffly, and then add the apple mixture very slowly in spoqnfuls. Beating all the time. Pour the cooled custard over the sponge cake, and when the liquid has been absorbed, heap on the stiff apple mixture and serve very cold. ** * * Almond Apples. Cook some large peeled and cored apples in the oven by pouring over them a syrup made of three ounces of sugar and a gill of water, basting frequently. When tender, coat with crush ed ratafia biscuits and serve with custard sauce. •* « * Apple Fool. Cook a pound and a Half of apples in a gill of water with the rind of a lemon and six ounces of sugar. When quite tender rub through a sieve, add the iui-re of a lemon and leave to cool. Make a pint of thick custard (or use whipped cream, or cream and custard), and when cold mix with the apples and serve in individual glasses. #* * * Jelly Apples. Peo! a.nd core some large apples, cut them in half and cook in syrup which has been tinted with a little carmine. When tender take them out carefully, arrange in a glass dish and pour the syrup round. Fill the centre of each with blackberry or red currant jelly, and serve cold with cream or custard.