DON'T QUARREL.

Shannon News, 25 October 1929, Page 4

DON'T QUARREL.

Mildred's mother makes no secret of being puzzled and hurt by her children’s persistent refusal to come home for the holidays now they arc grown up and have abodes of their own, says a Writer. And her bewilderment is as genuine as her distress.

‘lt's not' as if we had ever been oppressive parents to them,” she says, “or even the horribly intrusive ‘good pals’ that some of the modern sort insist on being, to the ultimate revulsion of their young. ’ ’ ‘ ‘ Compared with niost of our acquaintance, we seem to have been quite outstandingly sensible, tolerant, and jolly. Right from the beginning we made ‘go easy’ our watchword, because that seemed the only way to ensure a perfect relationship. Is it possible that we were wrong?” I think that she and her very charming husband were perfectly right. But they overlooked one thing which has out-weighed all their wise resolutions. Mildred, who tells me most things since I, backed her up on moving out to a home of her own, let me into the secret.

“Mum and dad used to quarrel so when we were young,” she said, “and that’s why I feel on edge all the time I spend at home. “It’s unreasonable, because I know now that their quarrels were just summer lightning. They’d forgotten all about them an hour later.

“But I hadn’t, especially when I was tiny. Then each one seemed like the end of the world to Jack and me. 1 used to be crying myself to sleep or waking up from a nightmare about it, just when they were probably making a joke of it to some intimate friend.

“And, of course, w'hen I came to understand that these outbursts didn’t mean anything at all, I felt contemptuous of my fears, and I am afraid of my parents as w r ell. And now 7 w r ell, that’s how 7 it is.” And that is how it is wdth a good many other people I know 7 . Some of the jolliest and sunniest natures aro most given to these thunderstorms. Sometimes, just like grown-up childyen, they even rather like them. .1 have heard more than one couple I know w r cll openly ragging s one another about displays of temper as if they were the best joke in the world. Anl I thought they were, too, till I heard Mildred’s point of view and wondered w r hat is seemed like to the children.