PROVOCATIVE MOTHERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17189, 5 November 1923, Page 9

PROVOCATIVE MOTHERS.

By ELIZABETH MARC. »• My girls are so quarrelsome!’’ exclaimed Mrs X. 1 had noticed it myself. The X s were only hotel acquaintances. They j sat at the. next table in the dining room, and all through each meal the j girls quarrelled in a well-bred underi tone. j In the politest and most courteous j manner they bandied unpleasauness and spite. At frequent in terra Is they' ! appealed to “Mother ” to corroborate j them. And she always agreed with each daughter in turn that the other j was at fault. j A thoroughly unpleasant family ! ! Such, indeed. they appeared until j one day Mother did not come down to breakfast. Then, unexpectedly. Father, | u quiet, weary-eyed man became not a | figurehead, but a host, i He entertained his daughters, j Throughout the meal they listened to | him laughing with kindly tolerance at i his ancient jokes, gentlv challenging j his’out-of-date views. For thus does j the modern, daughter honour her | father. And the surrounding tables i sighed with relief. How truly pleasI ant these girls could be without, their i mother ! | And yet Mrs X. was an excellent 1 and conscientious woman. But she j rubbed her daughters up the wrong ! way ! She criticised them and found | fault with them, but she never laughjed with them. She agreed with them ‘ only when they disagreed. And at the j rare moments when there was peace j she remembered a grievance of her

“ Mary,” she would exclaim. “ You borrowed my embroidery scissors and you.did not return them." ‘•.Vlarv never returns anything; she borrows!” murmured Celia. ** She still lias mv silver thimble.*' sighed Sybil And all this because Mother forgets to show her daughters the courtesy she exhibits towards her friends. A “ grown-up " daughter (and they i'onsider themselves grown up when they are very young nowadays) can be led along the smiling oaths of courtesy by a mother who uses tact and consideration . Fathers invariably treat the "grown!up ” girl with the courtesy that | heightens her self-respect. But many | mothers are antagonistic. Sometimes they are unconsciously jealous of the I grown-up girl. .Sometimes they are ! well-meaning but provocative. But 1 the result is quarrelsome girls, an unj pleasant family, and a mother who deI plores tho manners of the modern