THROUGH THE LETTER BOX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20332, 13 August 1929, Page 15

THROUGH THE LETTER BOX.

RY DOROTHY MX"

ANSWERS TO QUERIES.

[Children have their problems ns well «s their elders lilul below is one out of the tunny which have been submitted to Dorothy Dix for her advice. An afflicted wife also appeals for help.]

Dear Miss Dix,--Six years ago our mother died, leaving ti£ with a stranger, our father, for he was a stranger to us. Hi' was just someone that wc were terribly afraid of. lie didn't understand us and we didn't understand him. lie does so many things that hurt us so badly that i suppose we hurt him, because" lie (ells everybody what terrible children we are, that we have no love for him and that we don't care what happens to him. We long for tho love of our father. Perhaps he longs for our lovo, but we are growing further apart every day. 1 wonder if you can understand how this hurts, and if it is really our fault. Very Unhappy CniLnnuN.

Answer: 1 do not undedstand it, for it is a tragedy that 1 have seen happen in many families. 1 know of many children" who are starving Tor love and tenderness, who are lonely and afraid and longing for parents to whom tftf'v can cling for protection, to whom they can go with their confidences and their troubles, but wno pre so afraid of their parents that they dare not, approach them. They are so little acquainted with their own fathers and mothers that they could show their hearts to any chance acquaintance sooner than to them. And 1 know plenty of fathers and mothers who spend their lives toiling for their children and who long for their affection and confidence more tlian for anything else on eaitli and yet who have built a barrier between themselves and their children that they cannot break down. They treat their own sons and daughters with less affection and less consideration than they do their very servants and office boys. Women, from tho very nature of the relationship between mother and chihl, seldom make the mistake of not getting close to their children, but fathers often do, especially men who are very busy and who aro engaged ill big commercial enterprises. Believed in Discipline. I have one such man in my mind as I write, lie is a splendid man, fine and honourable, generous and sympathetic, and really affectionate at heart, but a man who believed in discipline and who made a god of efficiency and who thought that you could treat a family as you ran a factory. He had a fine family of girls and boys and in order to give them every advantage and every comfort and luxury lie toiled incessantly. It was the desire to give them everything that drove him on and he had not the wisdom to know that the most important thing he could give them was to give them himself. It has actually never entered these children's minds that their father is even a friend. Still less that ho loves them and that ho passionately yearns for their love in return, that he would give anything he possesses for them to show him some affection and bo friends with him. That is the case with your father. When he accuses you of being ungrateful children and not_ loving him, it is his jealousy crying out. It is because he craves for some sign of. tenderness from you It is because lie longs for your confidences. So why don't you go to him and tell him of your love, tell him that you arc starving for affection, too, and how you long for a father (o cling to and to advise you. Believe me, if you do this, he will take you to his heart and you will all be happy together. Of course, the estrangement between you is his fault. Children instinctively love their parents and cling to them and it is always the parents who build the wall between them when they are separated, but don't make your father bear all the suffering for his mistake. \on are young, you have the whole world before you, but he has nothing but you, and if he has not your love to repay him for all the sacrifices he has mado for you, then is he poor indeed. Dorothy Dix. Bought Her Clothes! Dear Miss. Dix, —I am devoted to my husband and ho is to me, but I have a problem that 1 do not know how to solve. My husband gives me everything within our means which he hears me say I need or want, but ho selects and buys the things himself. Sometimes I could scream when lie walks in with a much-needed pair of silk stockings of a colour that matches nothing I have or a dress that makes mo look like a figure of fun, or a hat that brings out every bad point of my face. And the trouble is 1 cannot afford to get sonicthing in the place of these misfits. I have to wear thnrn. And my husband is so pleased with himself for being so pood to me. Please, Miss Dix, if you know a gentlo way to break tho news to a kind and generous husband that a wife wants to pick out her clothes, tell it to inc. An Afflicted Wife. Answer: A long time ago another woman in exactly your predicament showed mo a dress' that her husband had brought her when he came home from a trip. She was a thin, sallow, griz-zled-haired woman and tho dress was a vivid green that would make her complexion look like a lettuce leaf. And she said to me: " What shall I do? Shall I wear this atrocity and look like a caricature or shall I hurt my husband's feelings by telling him I wouldn't bo caught dead in it?" " Better hurt his feelings and have done with it." I told her, " because if you wear this thing he will repeat the offence and go along buying clothes as long as you live and patting himself on his back for thinking what wonderful tasto ho has." I can only repeat this counsel to you. Explain as gently and as tactfully to your husband as you can that whereas he is without doubt the cleverest and the wisest, man in the world and has perfectly marvellous taste, and so on, still there are a few things about women's clothes and fashions that ho has probably overlooked. 101 l him you have very peculiar ideas on the subject of what you like to wear and would prefer to pick your own clothes. So will he please just give you tho money and not burden himself with doing your shopping'! Perhaps (his will work. Perhaps it will not. Of course he will be hurt and disappointed in you, and you will hate to thwart his generous impulses and to take away from him the pleasure lie has in surprising you with things. But it is asking too much of any mortal woman to wear her husband's taste in millinery and frocks. That is a. cruel and inhuman punishment that no wife can lie expected to stand. No man, unless ho runs a frock or a millinery shop, should' have anything to do wii.li his wife's clothes except to pay for them. Dorothy Dix.