UNWANTED ADVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19405, 13 August 1926, Page 6

UNWANTED ADVICE.

The trials of owning a mother-in-hro have been for years a mainstay of th« music-hall stage, ranking in popularity even above the crying baby and tin passee gorgonzola. But, if you notice, it is always tlx husband who endures her shortcomings. II doesn't seem to strike anyone that wives, too, possess mothers-in-law. Perhaps it if that they don't make quite so much fuss about them. Of course, no wife who knows her busi> noss at all, will make a habit of criticising her husband's relations. They may be all that is unbearable/ but he aloflo may say so. At most she may venture on a mild agreement. But if you ask me, 1 think wives suffer from "in-laws"-.at least as much as husbands. In the first place, no husband!'tare} much how the details of housekeeping ar< arranged in his homo as long as he i 4 made comfortable. A wife does care very much, because it is her job, and she natun ally hast her own ideas and methods. Sd that tho well-meant interfren.ee. of mother-ia«law in these matters will irri< tate the wife in a way no husband can really understand. It doesn't follow, after all, that because George has always liked his eggi fried on both sides, he won't be perfectly happy with Mary, who, somehowj can only succeed in frying ..them-on one, At all events if George doesn't mind, il isn't worth worrying Mary about. And, anyway, breakfast isn't a very good moment to start a reform, is it? And then, if George has always preferrcd cotton sheets, and Mary prides her self particularly on the quality of heJ linen onos--welh why spoil her pleasuri in them, especially as George doesn't appear to mind, and probably hasn't eves noticed the difference, anyway ? And oh, abtWe all, mothers-in-law, when the younger generation begins to, arrive don't criticise, don't bewail difference! of upbringing between them and you* own family—in short, don't, oh. don'S interfere. You may admire and congratulate. and just' very, very occasionally perhaps you may suggest—as long as you never dictate! It .may call for all you* tact to' keep silence when you see soma treatment tnat you consider wrong, ot the formation of some, habit that you consider bad, but it will pay you in the long run to wait till your opinion is asked for. # Unwanted advice never carries much weight, and if you. continually offer it, don't forget that yftti may end by antagonising your son's wife for ever, which is the last thing any mother would want to do. In a word, be ready, but not too anxious, to help, and you will find that your daughter-in-law will come to look on you, not as the dreaded musichall bogey, but as her dearest and most valued friend.