MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2419, 6 February 1909, Page 12 (Supplement)

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

CHEIR RELATIONSHIP NOT AS IT SHOULD BE. AN AMERICAN SOCIAL REFORMER'S VIEWS. •T do net hesitate to say, in my experience in rescue work amoiig uniortunate girls, extending nm ' S' ~ period of twenty-five yeais, and cm bracing a knowledge ol the hrstoiy ol tens of thousands of them, that l - iftv per cent, of these girls took tilt S'SSp in their sad career because •if lack of knowledge. ' Important words these—pregnant 111P . a niiu>- to every mother 01 daughters, and gathering value from the fact ‘ written by one well-qualified fiom a fcual experience to speak with antho - ;tv—Mr. Charles Nelson CnUenton. \ir. Crittenton is the head ot a .rreat mission work of the sC)Cia ; Form in America, which 74 district homes, in which unfoitun ite girls are taken m and cared ioiF u that position, he says, 1 Lave •,omo to bear from Inis usually sealr,tl U p to the world the secrets that ier in light upon their otherwise unintelligible history, it is possible that >nv words are based upon anl expeneu■e different from that of otners, -ml hence I have been persuaded to v.ntc which he does m the Jannarv number of - The Laches Home Journal.” I have Sound ‘-bo v-. U proceeds, that much of the unhaljow>cl influence which conics into a g !1 ■ ■ife is due to her estrangement from her mother at the most critical period of her life. It constantly appalls ■lie to realise how widespread is tins estrangement between mother and luu< r hter. In my evangelistic labors, foing from city to city. I am treTuently consulted by mothers m regard to family matters. Almost invariable the question is: “What can r do to win the confidence of my daughter?'’ They say that uhen their daughters were* little girls the intercourse was of the closest, but now that they are netting in their ’teens they shut their mothers out from their confidences. The fact is plough to send a mother asking for help, o for,' surely, if there is ever a time who'u a girl needs the guiding band or a tine and faithful friend it is when the frail barque of. girlhood is being launched on tempestuous .foods of -awakened womanhood. : T have almost invariably found that the mother bad first begun to build the wall of separation. In the nnoeonce of her pure, young heart the daughter had asked some simple (ueation pertaining to the mystery of ife or some 'kindred subject, ami the mother, full of worldly wisdom and •elf-consciousness, bad turned the childish question away with an • implied, if not spoken, falsehood. When the girl lias gained front another source the information which she desires—and which she is always sure to get sooner or later, for if she does not she is woefully Jacking in the powers of deduction or perception—and finds that her mother h-as been either untruthful or misleading upon one subject, she feels that she may be so upon others, and, therefore, she foes not care to trust her mother with other secrets dear to her heart. And so the wall, for which the mother laid the foundation, is built up into gigantic proportions by the imaginative and impressionable child. “Fathers and mothers seem to forget this great, vital truth': that if they expec to keep the confidence of their children they must deserve it; both by returning to the children confidence which they, in, turn, appreciate as much as do older people, and also by showing themselves able to cope with the situation which is presented to them. When John Stuart Mill’s wife was remonstrated with For telling her little daugter something of the cause of unfortunate girls she replied: “What other girls have to suffer my own little girl can at least - afford to know about.” She might have added what doubtlessly she felt: “and therefore be saved from a like fate.” Pray, do not mistake me. I know very well that knowledge is not always protection. Here and there you will find .a girl who lias deliberately sinned against the light. But believe me when I say, from a knowledge of thousands of cases, that such an exception is rate, and that knowledge to a girl is an absolute protection. And where, in the face of knowledge, a tragedy enters our circle, it' will at least be robbed of one of its stings; the thought that it might have been prevented.

“It is something, yes, much, that we have done the best we could do. But bow many parents can honestly say this to-day?” J