Woman's World

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 27 August 1914, Page 6

Woman's World

THE MOTHER AS COMPANION TO HER DAUGHTERS. HOW THE GIRLS' CONFIDENCE MAY ]3E LOST 06 KEPT. "My best 'pal' is my daughter," said a middle-aged woman to a friend. "And my daughter," mournfully replied the friend, "refuses to be anything but an acquaintance to me. She regards her home as a lodging-house, and her mother as a landlady." Those bitter words, uttered by a most kindly, capable woman, were overheard by a writer recently, and naturally saddened and depressed. There is no relationship in | the world so beautiful or tender as the ' understanding that exists between : mother and daughter who are friends. Aid there is nothing more tragic than the far more common estrangement that one sees between so many mothers and daughters. SOW WHAT YOU WISH TO REAP. It is unfair, however, to put most of the blame on the shoulders of the inexperienced girls. Youth is always sellish. Very few girls naturally and instinctively consider their parents unless they have been trained to do so from earliest childhood. There is always a feeling of constraint in the mind of th« growing girl when her mother suddenly begins to talk to her about the serious side of life. And if the mother has never made it her business to win her daughter's confidence while ;juite young, it is not unreasonable of her to expect it to be given freely when the child is "approaching womanhood. Probably, the woman who bewailed her daughter's indifference had made no continued eil'ort to establish an understanding between herself and her child in the latter's early childhood. Like so many women) of to-day, she expected to reap where she had not sown. BE A COMPANION FROM THE FIRST. If a mother wishes to make a real companion of her daughter, she must begin when the daughter is a little more than a baby. She must teach the child to come to her for everything she needs, but it is no use her doing this unless sho is able to show that she can give . her child what the child needs. For , instance, it is absurd a woman refusing j a small girl the companionship of other j children if she herself cannot supply something in place of it. If a mother is so engrossed in. duties or so preniaturely aged that she.cannot enter into the joys and sorrows of a small girl, how can she logically expect her child to- regard her as a friend'{ j THE CONFLICT OF IDEAS. j Unless a woman is singularly well in touch with modem thoughts and events her outlook of life is bound to be dis- j similar from that of her daughters. It I is not necessary that she should change j a philosophy or point of view that rca- j soning and experience have taught her . to regard the best, P.ut she should be j sure that her piii'losopuy is based on thought, and is not merely slavish adherence to the "1-do-what-I-do-because my-grandmother-did-it" fetish. Jf slie refuses the latchkey to her grown-up • daughter, or will not ailow her sixteeu-year-old-girl to ask young men to tea, she should at least make sure that such strictness is the outcome of honest principle, and not merely the clinging to custom as custom. Even young girls are usually willing to respect sincerity and genuine-felt convictions, but they resent intensely—and quite rightly, too—the illogical idea that because a thing has never been done before, it must never be done now; they protest very bitterly against the doctrine that everything that is new is necessarily bad. Even if a mother is honestly convinced that the old ways are best she should be fair enough to her girls to listen to their arguments in favor .of more modern thought. 'Between mother and daughter there should surely he enough good feeling and affection to render the discus- j ,sion of a point in dispute possible without unpleasantness. But if a mother adopts the "thc-matter-is-settled-so-there's-no-niore-to-be-said" attitude towards her oirls, how can she blame them if they go elsewhere for sympathy and understanding? KEEPING PACE WITH THE GIRLS. However, most women, even old-fash-ioned women, usually have more in common with modern thought than they know until the discovery is forced upon tlicm by crisis. But, whether early Victorian iir twentieth century in her ideas I of life there is nothing to prevent the I everyday mother from taking a very keen interest in the pursuits of their daughters. For example, the wise woman, as soon as she sees that her daughters are interested in swimming, decides to learn swmming too, so that she can enjoy the healthful exercise as well. If siie" hears tliem talking golf, she buys a club, and knocks a ball about just to show that she is not too old to feel the fascination of the game. If Milly and Kitty are reading Maeterlinck she reads Maeterlinck, too, so that she can discuss the great writer with the girls.

HOW MOTHER CAN TAKE Till! LEAH.

And if one is very, very wise »)»• is not content to imitate, but she initiates, leading tli" way in art yml minie. as well as in literature and sport. Then, there is no f|t(<'.iiion of Molly asking timidly if she may lravn swimming, or Kitty if she can join a Heading Society. It is mother who says, "Shall we go to thr baths and Irani to .-.wim';" oy "shall we read Shaw or ])irken> this winteiv" A mother who arts on the-e lines need nrvrr frar that lirr {.'iris will M> away t'rom Imt as t<» iter us merely iniMress of the in wlik'h they live. Xo woman *hoiiM thai - ; !n' has no time. The ])roplr who have no lime tor anvtliing ai'e oSten in their method, and so fritter away golden moments 111 at they literally waste, daythat could have been planned out so much more b< n■■firiallv to themselves and others. I'nVs, definite ill-health, or the eave of the babies, prevents a mother from sharing her girl's live:', there is no excuse fur apathy that ran be regarded as legitimate. \ re-ar-I iy.:i n 'eiiieHi- o! the da/. routine. and a little more method and trjciiUlr- 11131'.!L r < .ii*-tit. nf til l ' hoiae, and very few mother.., would lind themselves unable to share their children s ph-a-aires and hobbies. TilK Cfi:l/S XKKI! (!!•' SYMPATHY. No woman experts o! a woman tiieiul t,I oive he;- be-,1 ill friendship unless she herself can respond. No woman jriHV. to a woman "p:U" he- comfort, and help ill trouble unless -he has done her part a establishing a friendly understanding between tliein. Why is it. then, that so many women expect their o-jrls to regard them as bosom pals when !10 attempt has been made to form & beautiful friendship'; (Jreat ;us is { lie beauty and dignity of womanhood it is not given in itself to establish friendship between woman and child. A mother who expects her child to look upon her as lu-r best friend dimply because

she is her mother, makes the gravest mistake in tlm world. THE MEANS AND THE END. To a woman who wants her girl's palship, the writer would say this: Keep young. Show, when your daughters are quite little, that you are really interested in their thoughts, and doings. Show them, as they grow older, that you can see their difficulties and problems from their own view point as well as from your own. Be a pal to them, in practice as well as in theory. Initiate, and they will respond. Never plead that you are too busy or too tired to listen to them, when they want help and advice, and don't wait till they ask for it. Draw them out from their tight little shells by sympathetic, tender, cross-examina-tion and intuitive understanding. Jf you do this your reward shall be great. MENACE OF THE SUBMARINE THE CONTROVERSY AT 110-MK London, July 15. "Tho question 'hau often been raised whether existing naval types will change and Whether the great ships of the Dreadnought era will some day follow the mamijnoth and the mastadon into a convenient and highly desirable extinction," said Mr Churchill in a recent speech. "Those who believe that that timte will come—and they are a considerable school —point with n warning finger to the ever-growing power of the ' submarine and to the new expanding possibilities of the air, and they ask whether the day will not oome when, •guided 'by information out of the sky, a blow may not be struck beneath the water which will be fatal to the predominance of grea/t capital ships, at any rate in the narrow sea:®. "That time 'has not come yet, and the ultimate decision of naval war (still rests -with those who can place in the line of battle fleets and squadrons which in numbers and quality, in homogeneity in organisation, in weight of metal, and ■ in good shooting are superior to any- | tiling they may be called upon to meet/' j WHAT THE CRITICS SAY. |' The opinions with regard to future " naval warfare wliidh Admiral Sir Percy Scott expressed in a recent letter to tlie J Times have created world-wide discus- • sion. He announced his belief that the • introduction of vessels that swim under [ the water had entirely done away with I'the utility of ships that swim on top | of the water. i 1 Very few appear to have reached the precise position which tlw admiral has taken up, though many recognitw to the full the possibilities of the new weapons, I but deprecate hasty conclusions. By far I the larger number, however, desire further enlightenment, or utilise -the adImiral's declaration of faith as a text for 'advocating larger expenditure on submarines and aircraft, and a warning to j watch for and take 'advantage of every I fresh development of naval warfare. Sir Percy Scott has replied severally I to those who have little faith in the j torpedo as the decisive weapon, to those , who find the limitations in the powers j of the submarine si bar to its becoming 1 the arbiter «f sea supremacy, and to | those who question the capacity of any instrument which dare not come into the open, but acts by stealth, to achieve the dominion of the seas. "Many naval officers have written that they agree with me," he says. "011 the other hand, many critics have expressed opinions that I ain premature, that I have assumed what may be a possibility in the future to he a fact of to-day, tliitt in warfare the torpedo has been disappointing, and that the. submarine is blind, slow, and easily de- | stpoyed. None of my critics ha's given a satisfactory explanation of what our tatitleships would or could do if we should be at war with a nation well equipped with suilmmrines." "A Naval Officer' writes: "During last manoeuvres I was in a fust-class armoured cruiser in the North Sea. We had an idea, Mat submarines were about, because several of our ship} had been 'sunk' somewhere about wltere we had been the 'Wovious day. We consequently were keeping a particularly bright look-out for them. The day was and quite clesvr. To our dismay one came to the surface less than a hundred yards from us, and signalled, "I have fired two torpedoes irito you, and claim you out of action.'" | ALL WAR IS BARBAROUS.

"The idea of attacking commerce by submarines f< barbarous," fays Admiral liacon, and to this Sir Percy Scott replies:— "All war is, of course, barbarous, but in war the purpose of the enemy is to crush his foe; to arrive at this lie will attack where his foe is most vulnerable. Our most vulnerable point is our food and oil supply. The 'submarine lias introduced a new (method of attackin,; these supplies. Will feelings of 11.11'nunity re.-,train our enemy from using it