Evening Round Up Part 29

Let's have the corners of your mouth turned up tonight at the supper table; be part of the family, Dad, not a poor, tired bread winner.

We don't want to hear any more sh--sh--or whispers when you come home.

We don't want to feel that restraint and uncomfortable feeling; let's laugh and sing and love and play--let's make your home-coming a joyous event.

We all love you, Dad, but you haven't made it as comfortable as you might for us when we try to express our love. You've been too tired, too busy, too much occupied with those business thoughts.

Don't you see how we love you, and how we appreciate you? Don't you know that there is no one in the world who can take the place of Dad?

Keep your heart young, Dad; we will help if you only say "come on." We are waiting for the signal. Let's start the new schedule tonight; come on, Dad, what do you say?

CRYING BABIES

When They Cry There's a Reason; Find It

Now come the wise doctors with the injunction to let the baby cry. They tell us it's good for the baby's lungs and that the baby needs the exercise and all that sort of rot.

They augment this with the statement that if we soothe or coddle our babies they will get the habit and require our attention always before they go to sleep.

Old Mother Nature has been pretty successful in raising animals. Let the kitten, dog, pig or chicken give the sign of pain or distress and the mother will hasten to its offspring and nestle it.

When a baby cries, it's because it's hungry, or too warm or too hot or too uncomfortable, or it has pain or distress. It's just nature's instinct given by G.o.d to the helpless infant that it may call attention to its trouble. The doctor would complain if uncomfortable. The doctor or the parent can help himself, but the baby can use its only signal, a cry.

When baby cries it should be taken up and soothed. Don't pay any attention to the doctor who says the baby cries to be petted; baby can't reason in its infant days; its little brain hasn't reached the reasoning powers.

Doctors constantly protest and warn us against over exertion on the part of children and even adults; yet they tell us to let the few-weeks-old baby cry, which is the most violent and extreme exertion it can put forth.

Crying puts a strain on all the baby's vital organs and its delicate, fragile blood vessels and heart. There have been thousands of babies who have had irreparable damage done to their const.i.tutions because of this cold-blooded, heartless fad of the doctors, to let baby cry.

Many a mother's heart is torn and wrung because of the doctor's order, "Let the baby cry."

The mother is worked up into an excited nervous condition by the doctor's inhuman order to let the baby cry, and this same doctor tells her not to become excited because it will have a bad effect on her nursing baby. Just read this paragraph over again and see if the doctor hasn't crossed his logic wires and insulted common sense.

The doctors become calloused; they are used to seeing pain and suffering. It's easy for them to endure pain in others, and easy for them to give them heartless orders.

And generally the doctor who affects most knowledge about baby rearing is the one who has no babies of his own.

Dr. Walls of Chicago is one of the most eminent child specialists in the world and he agrees with my conclusions in this matter and so does most every really great child specialist I know.

When baby cries, find the reason; change its position; see if there is a pin sticking; find out whether it's heat, cold, hunger or pain.

There's a reason why babies cry. My wife is emphatic on that point and she has reared three mighty fine babies, and I have watched and helped her.

GIRL

Be a Know Girl, Not a Show Girl

Girl, what a wonderful creature you can be. What a glorious success you can make of your life, if you get the right start, the right hands to help you, the right hearts to love you, and the right eyes to watch you, the right thoughts to make you, and the right ideals to guide you.

There are so many influences to spoil you, so much convention, so much artificiality, so much sn.o.bbery, so much caste, so much foolish frivolity.

Then there are the wrong examples, the wrong grooming, the wrong environments, the wrong influences surrounding you, that it is not to be wondered why so many girls lose their heads and make a fizzle of their young lives.

The fizzle is generally because daddy and mamma have a lot of foolish notions about bringing up the girls. Especially is this so if the parents are wealthy.

Here is the history of many a rich girl. She is born without welcome, fed on a bottle, reared by a nurse, grows up in a nursery, estranged from her mother, later on sent away to school, mixes with a lot of other rich girls, gets lots of foolish notions, false estimates, and prejudiced views. She graduates and comes home and there are a lot of "doings" which she attends, then comes the show-off which is called a debut.

She is shown off like a filly at the horse show, and some high-collared young man wins her head although she thinks it's her heart. She thinks it's the thing to marry, and he is such "a swell fellow," he is such "good company," and he "dances so well,"--these qualities win her head.

So the girl marries, has children, husband goes broke and the girl awakens to the necessity of coming down from her pedestal, facing stern necessity, and raising her children as her mother should have raised her.

That's the picture of the poor rich girl whose parents are to blame for the nonsense she got in her head.

But, you, Girl, you are going to learn your cooking on a gas range instead of a chafing dish; you'll learn to bake bread before fudge; you'll learn how to cook solids before you learn to make salads.

You will study simplicity, sentiment, sense, sereneness, sweetness, rather than envy, frills, feathers and foolishness.

G.o.d's n.o.blest woman's calling is the work for children and home.

To cook and sew is a higher duty and better occupation than bridge parties and society.

Not that you must cook and sew, my dear, but that you can if necessary.

With the ability to cook and sew you can properly direct the cook or seamstress, and they will respect you for your education.

The painted, powdered, tinsel, fluff, feathers and furebelow girl may be das.h.i.+ng now and you may envy her, but you, with your quiet, sweet, simple, sensible ways--you will win real love, real respect, real affection, real pleasures, real satisfaction, in all the days to come; you will make a success of your life.

Frills and feathers may be an attraction to the girl who makes the fizzle of her life, but sweetness and simplicity, and sentiment and sense, are precious jewels that will endure for all time.

Be that sweet girl. Do not be the "show" kind, or the blow kind, be the real "know" kind, and you will grow in the hearts of all who love reality and hate artificiality. We all love the "know" kind--the sweet, simple, sensible girl who knows.

So here's my hand, little sister, little daughter, little girl, and to you here are also the sweetest thoughts of mine heart, for I picture you through eyes, and through a heart, that sees two sweet little girls of my very own.

I am going to stick mighty close to my girls and try to bring them up to be real girls who will be loving, lovable and loved.

So then here is the hope that you, girl, will start right, keep right and end right. I want you to think of sense, sentiment, and simplicity rather than dances, dollars, duds and doings.

I want your life to be one of poise, happiness and serenity instead of noise, worry and nerves.

This little message is all for you--GIRL.