PARENTS—NOT MARTYRS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

PARENTS—NOT MARTYRS

FOOLISH SELF-SACRIFICES YOUTHFUL INDIFFERENCE How many parents immolate themselves on the altar of thcii children s future? says Lady Strathspey in a recent thoughtful and illuminating article. In more liomos than wo realise fond fathers and mothers are stinting and scraping and starving and denying themselves every comfort so that Jimmy or Marjorie or both shall have better chances than they had. It is a wild and tragic mistake. But self-sacrifice of parents to a child who does not need their martyrdom and does not even known about it, is to me something more than foolish. It is al-

The men who try to do something and Jail are infinitely better than those Who try to do nothing and succeed. —Lloyd Jones.

most wicked—for it does-more harm than good. Mothers are usually tho worst culprits, and suffer most in consequence. Childhood and youth aro only capable of gratitude for specific, tangible things. Unless someone outside tho home grounds them in tho knowledge that others are suffering for their future, they never understand. Prove it by looking back on your own childhood. You may have had tho greatest affection for your parents. You may have gone out of your way to please them. But I guarantee that you hardly gave a thought to their outlook upon you, save, perhaps, to grumble at them for still thinking you a child when you thought you were grown up. A parent, perhaps, will retort: "That's nothing to do with it. I stint myself for my child because I prefer to do so. I want my offspring to have the best chances in life. I don't want gratitude for it." Very well. If you want your child to have the best chances you want it to have some character in order to

mako the most of its opportunities. And that is precisely what you are denying it. Parents who forget themselves and remember only their children may be the dearest people. But they do not rear the dearest children. How could they? The cffaccmcnt of themselves obviously gives the child an enlarged view of itself. It is the only personage to consider. That is why it develops into selfish and ungrateful youth. Why, twenty or thirty years ago we were continually hearing of mothers and fathers who had given their lives for sons and daughters, who ended by deserting them or landing in serious scrapes. If the Victorian and Edwardian boy and girl didn't realise that parents made sacrifices, wo can be quite sure that tho youth of to-day will not. Again it is all so needless in these times. Youth to-day is "Older." The Youth of yesterday may have needed encouragement and petting and all kinds of consideration. To-day boys and girls all but resent what their parents at the same ago would have taken for granted. And I wonder if tho higher education which some parents confer on their children at the cost of their own health and happiness, is really of any value. If the boy or girl is clever enough to take advantage, yes. But how few are. Look at tho hundreds educated above their wants and station with no possibility of utilising their knowledge. The scarcity of jobs settles that question. When a boy or girl shows real ability there is no sacrifice needed. Countless facilities are given in scholar-, ships and money and free classes and the interest of people in high places. People who efface themselves before today's boys and girls will get all that they ask for —that is, ingratitude and complete indifference.