ONE FAULT AT A TIME!

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 31, 29 April 1927, Page 5

ONE FAULT AT A TIME!

There are many women who cultivate the dangerous habit of “bottling up’’ their displeasure until at last it boils over, engulfing themselves and their victims in an emotional cataract. They try to play the ultra-magnani-mous part, and to close their eyes to misdemeanours on the part of their children or their servants, until the day comes when all this self-control goes for naught, and they ‘have it out” on the grand scale. With the result, of course, that the tempestuous upheaval does far more harm than good. Because at such times, and in such moods, every grievance that has been slumbering in silent wrath is brought up against the offender. Instead of concentrating on immediate cause of the boiling-over process, the whole gamut of past sins of omission and commission is dealt with in a state more or less bordering on hysteria. No clear impression is left on the wrongdoer’s mind. By the time the tirade is finished, frequently with tears and raging rebellion on both sides, the situation is simply worse than ever, and a definite enmity has been created. No one can inculcate sweetly reasonable disciplinary measures in such circumstances. It is a fatal mistake to permit child or servant to go on committing the same fault while you are in a peace-at-any-price mood, and then turn and rend them wholesale, so to speak, when the mood changes and you want make war! To deal with one fault at a time, and that forthwith, is the only possible way to make any definite impression on the offenders’ minds. To sweep them up on a general whirlwind of condemnation is simply to leave your victims wondering what is it all about.

Briefly, never harbour that sense of resentment until self-mastery is impossible, and every vestige cf selfcontrol is lost.