Parents A Handicap

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

Parents A Handicap

Ethel Mannin Says Excessive Devotion Is Bad

"Dominion” Special Service—By Airmail.

London, June 18. A BOY’S worst friend is hie mother, said a speaker at a recent conference of psychologists. This week Ethel Mannin, at her Wimbledon cottage, expressed her views on the subject, not for the first time. Jean, her 14-years-old daughter, also had something to say. “Yes, parents can be a handicap to their children,” said this young product of a co-educational schooL “Molly-coddling of any sort is bad for a child’s morale,” said Miss Mannin. “Excessive devotion may later have the result of preventing boys and girls from standing on their own feet.” Then Miss Mannin began to flay other faults of parents, such as; “Taboos” that are never properly explained ; their stupidity about explaining sex; unintelligible punishments. “I suffered from all these as ar child myself,” said Miss Mannin. “That’s made me a very wary mother with Jean. I will never put her through that mill.” And Jean nodded approval. Miss Mannin believes that sex instruction should be given by parents and not teachers. “Why risk the illeffects of facts gingerly explained by a sex-repressed teacher?” she asked.

Debutantes’ dance frocks are becoming more and more romantic. A typical London example was made with sixty yards of white net, ten yards of taffeta, and'ten yards of chiffon. The skirt measured twenty yards around the hem.