THE UP-TO-DATE MOTHER
Now this young woman (the caretaker) wants to hold her position, and so she is very anxious to carry out in detail the laws and rules that are laid down by the mother. Mother can keep abreast with the world, mother has time to read periodicals that keep her in touch with the great, wide, pulsating affairs of life. She is able to meet more women worth while, and with her husband attend lectures, musicals, theaters, and other places for intellectual culture.
Anyone of my readers need not look four blocks from her home to find a mother who is run down at the heel, whose dresses are calico, whose hat is five or six years old, whose black silk dress (the only one she ever had) is worn shiny or threadbare, who works and saves every penny that she can that her children may look well; and, even when the husband does invite her to go out with him, he will often be confronted with this remark: "John, I would like to go, but really my clothes are a little bit shabby." The world is just full of such women, with their very hearts being eaten out of them for the want of a beautiful gown, a beautiful hat or a pretty pair of evening shoes, and they might have them every one if they would be willing to allow the duties of the household to be presided over by a woman that cannot do the things the mother can do, while she goes out and accrues a number of dollars each week which will more than provide for the things that her soul desires so that she may go well dressed by the side of her husband in quest of that very necessary intellectual culture and social diversion.
The wife of a prominent judge, in my office just this week, said to me that she believed that most of our social and domestic uneasiness was due to the fact that fathers and mothers and children went out together so seldom. The father goes to his club, the children go to their little gatherings, and mother usually stays at home; although of late, she is beginning to realize the value of the women's clubs.