THESE DAUGHTERS OF OURS!

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

THESE DAUGHTERS OF OURS!

When you are feeling most aggrieved, Little Mother, about your daughter’s seeming ingratitude, try to think back a little to the days when you played the daughter's role. The days when your mother made pretty much the same sort of sacrifices you are making for your bairn—in the way that mothers have always done, from time immemorial. Were you always intensely grateful? Did you always stop to thank her for every loving maternal act of sympathy and understanding? Did the right phrase leap always to your mind at the psychological moment? Were you always capable of putting yourself in her place, so to speak, and realising just how she felt when you seemed neglectful and indifferent? When you were dressed for the ball and eager for life, and dancing tiptoe in bright-eyed anticipation, did you always steal up to her and put your arms round her neck, and whisper fondly: “Thank you so much, darling, for getting all my ‘doings’ ready, and for wanting me to have a good time!” Of course you didn’t! Mothers “stayed put,” as it were, as mothers have always done. They just belonged. They were there when you wanted them: and they were there to see that Life strewed as many roses on your path as Fate and Circumstance could offer. Your daughter is made to very much the same pattern. She give,s you just the same sort of deep-down love as you gave your own mother, while taking many things apparently for granted. And some day, when she, too. is watching her own daughter dressing for the dance, her mind will go back to you, even as yours has done to her grandmamma, and she will understand—at last! We have to take the longer view—we mothers, ere we can know abiding maternal happiness. We have to look forward to the days when the trust we have tried loyally to fulfil will be re-fulfilled, in its turn, by chese starry-eyed daughters of ours who seem to look on Life as the playground of Youth. They, too, wi l ! awaken to the wider vision, and in their role of motherhood, will keep your memory green.

Miss I. L. Burton, secretary of the Auckland branch of the Royal Society for the Protection of Women and Children, has resigned for health reasons after IS years’ service.