DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 109, 29 July 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

FLAPPERS AND MOTHERS (Copyright, TN an address I read the other day it was asked: “Why should we assume that the dapper of 1927 will make a poorer mother than the ‘flapper’ of yesterday, who has been her mother?” There is just as much to the modern girl as there ever was to her ancestor. The fact that she wears short skirts and bobs her hair is not against her. She wears less clothing than her ancestors and is consequently healthier. She is more addicted to outdoor sports with beneficial results. Altogether the modern flapper of to-day is just as well prepared for motherhood as was her mother, and better than she. There is no more danger to a girl from taking an automobile ride than there was from taking a buggy ride. Of course dissipation and late hours are bad for anyone and in proportion as a woman indulges in this she is endangering her health and endangering posterity. But take it all in all the girl of to-day is quite as sensible as her mother was yesterday, and we may look forward with confidence to the future of the race. It never was in better hands. Those of to-day are just as seriousminded as their mothers were the day before. Virtue is not to be founded upon ignorance but upon knowledge, and if the girl of to-day knows more than her mother did it helps her and does not hinder her. She is prepared to be a man’3 partner and equal and not his slave and plaything and in this respect she has the advantage over former years. As far as I am concerned, the girls of to-day are healthier, betterlooking and more desirable as companions than were the girls of yesterday. This old world is bumping merrily along and some things about it some people don’t like, but on the whole it is improving.