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New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12643, 31 December 1926, Page 15

SMOTHER-LOVE A well-known woman “tvas speaking some time ago on the need for the professional woman to apportion her time between her public and her private duties in such a way that her children should not suffer through her absorption in interests, outside the home. But she differentiated between mother-love proper and what she designated as “smother-love” - the love that wants all for its own, and is content to see the children of others suffer. “Smother-love,” besides being callous as to the claims of those outside the home circle, has in its very concentration great potentiality for evil, rather than for good. Most of us have known the mother-love that is so bent on cherishing what it imagines to be the well-being of its objects, that it virtually smothers all initiative ana freedom of action on their part. # It peers and pries eo insistently into everything with which the loved ones are concerned, that natural ment becomes impossible. It smothers the individuality that is making an effort to assert itself, and produces,. as often as not, just a weak reflection, instead of the unfettered personality that should eventuate. Real mother-love will endeavour to make a child’s pathway as smooth as possible, but will bo content to watch tho progress at a little distance. “Bmotlier-Iove” will want to accompany the child all the way, eo that when the traveller finally emerges into the great world, independent action will be found impossible* racy