TOO MUCH SELF-SACRIFICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 17

TOO MUCH SELF-SACRIFICE.

1 know I bj flying in the fens cf tmdjtioa when I refuse to take off soy feat and salute §#Swn{&o every time ! meot it! pie horrible truth io-ri don’t believe in unlimited self-sacrifice 1 Like lota of other good , things, it should holy ho givpn—and taken—in smell doses! . hook at the soil-sacrificing mother, for instance, whet happens there? rU tell you- Hep children m mostly f«ww. sreedy, thoughtless,..inconsiderate little horrors! From the hour they hayo anything to think with, they think grownups were made specially to minister to their comfort and happiness. l*d like to have a private half-hour mtb a few bright young members of this objectionable brigade I Do these favoured Tittle wretches aver appreciate the eelf-sacrifice and slavish devotion of their mothers? Not a bit of it! They take everything as a matter of course. They ve always had it. It's become a right. It’s just an everyday thing, like bread and butter for tea. You can t expect anyone to pump up an avalanche of _ enthusiasm over broad and butter; it isn’t fair to expect it. And look at tho self-sacrificing wife. Is she appreciated? Not on your life! She toils and moils, does without this’ and that “ to save Charles,” and Charles, bless his thoughtless heart, accepts the toil and moil ana the doing-withoutnese as a matter of course! He's bad it eince the honeymoon days. You can't expect the most appreciative man on. earth to keep on being grateful. You get used to the most beautiful things in Ufa if they're always under your nose. (That's one reason why an uncomfortable .week-end away is ao good for ns—it shows, us how lucky we are to have our own comfy little shoot, instead of what other people call "home!”), ,

And what about, the self-sacrificing daughter? The daughter who gives up her career—or doesn’t even mention the fact that ehe’a eating her heart out for someone—so that she can stay at home and ‘‘ look after the old folk? ” la her self-sacrifice appreciated? Only in bits—and only at times! Such little bite—and so few times when they're measured against the years and years of life!

Mary’a self-sacrifice isn’t self-aacrifice—-after a few weeks or months!—-it's just ordinary! And in next to no time, the dear folk she’s sacrificing herself to and for, .will toll you in a kind, indulgent voice; _

* Mary's so different from her brothers and sisters. She’s never had any ambition. She’s always been a home bird.” Poor, poor Mary! Let’s Hope it’s true that virtue brings its own reward. You deserve all that's going, Mary! No, ,J haven’t any nee for this selfsacrificing business. It’s.all wrong!

First of all, the person who ponrs out unlimited self-sacrifice makes the object of her self-sacrifice a selfish, exacting take-all. It’s no use wasting time to prove you don’t. You do! You have all history behind you showing what it's done.

Have you any right to turn an ordinary, decent, capabl e-of-beic g-unselfish -if-it-had tho-chance person into a monster of selfishness? You haven’t!

Haven’t they the same right as you to develop a few of the virtues? They have! How are they going to if you grab all their chances?

Thera’s a lot of moaning and groaning about “ the selfishness of modern life, and we’re told that wives, mothers, and daughters " don’t give up as they used to do.

That bit of news cheers me no end. It shows we’re really and truly getting on. We’re developing the fifty-fifty spirit! We’re actually beginning to realise that we all, every .Jack one of us, have ‘‘ rights ’’—and we’ve begun handing them out.

Good-bye, misguided Self-Sacrifice! Forward, Fair Play!—Jean North, in Women’s Weekly.

boys in Palestine secondary schools are to wear European dress.