Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1913 — STEPMOTHERS AND THE MAN IN THE CASE [ARTICLE]

STEPMO THER S AND THE MAN IN THE CASE

tionship in the world and the one that calls for most real goodness, the greatest amount of hard, horse sense, and the finest tact to fill, Is that which exists between stepmother and step* children. Few women have the endowment. No children have It, tor it is the gift of age and experience, and the result to that the advent df the second wife In most families Is the beginning of a guerrilla warfare that lasts until the young people are grown and have gone to homes of their own. Popular sympathy always goes but to the children, who are so traditionally the victims that the very name of aEflpmnfhar hog mma to * wyHOtiy m for cruelty and heartleseness, although, In reality, the stepmother la quite as' likely to be the aggrieved and persecuted party as are the stepchildren. Nobody gives a thought, still less any pity, to the /real martyr In the case, the husband and father who loves both his second Wife and his children, who Is anxious to do right by both of them, and to see both aides happy and contented. What his. sufferings are In trying to decide between these antagonistic tactions. In tryfng to arbitrate between them, no tongue may tell. His heart is literally torn In twain, and the worst feature of his position Is his helplessness. He can, of course, prevent his wife from beating his children and physically abusing them, but beyond that he Is powerless. Cannot force her to give them a mother's love, a mother’s care, a mother’s watchfulness and guardianship. He may see them running wild, nedllng the restraint apd advice of an older and wiser wqman, but if his wife washes her hands of them and ignores them there is nothing that he can do about it. Nor can he force his children to do more than treat their stepmother with outward politeness. He cannot keep them from hating her and resenting her Interference in their affairs, or from their taking a malicious pleasure In doing Just the things that they know she most disapproves. I have recently had a letter from a man who sets forth just such a pitiful case as' this. He says that his home Is made an earthly purgatory by the endless quarreling of his children and their stepmother, and that he Bees Ms daughters actually almost In risk of going to the bad for lack 'of a mother's -.care, yet Ms wife holds herself apart from them In such Icy aloofness that she will not even speak to them about their clothes, er tell them about the Imprudence and danger of many things they do. Naturally this man Is miserable, and worried to death, and he asks what he must do under the circumstances. It seems to me that there is only one thing that he can db, and that Is to show bdth sides how their conduct wounds Mm, to make them see that he Is the real victim of their fight, the one that suffers most and is moet hurt. If he can convince them that every blow they strike at each other hits Ms heart first, if they have a particle of affection for him, they will call a truce. Of course, one of the reasons why there is so much unhappiness in homes Into which a .stepmother is brought Is because widowers so often seem to lose every vestige of Intelligence and reason when they marry. You will see a man with nearly grown daughters pick out a silly young girl no older than Me own .children and with no more wisdom nor experience aor Judgement, and he sill deliberately put this child to rule over other children, and expect the result to be peaoe and happiness. As well might he stick a lbs brand into a barrel of gunpowder and not look for an explosion. When a widower marries, in all conscience, he hasn’t any right Just to marry for Mmself. His first consideration should be to provide Ms children with a stepmother who is the kind of a woman who could take their mother's place so far as that Is possible. It Is criminal for him to marry the sort of a woman who will bring discord into the home, and who will embitter the lives of Ms children, and force Ms sons and daughters to leave home at the earliest possible moment Nor has any woman a right to marry a man with children unless she Is sure she can take a mother’s place with them and is wiling to do a mother's duty by them. She takes this responsibility upon herself with her eyes open, knowing what she is doing, and the curse of the God of the Innocent is upon he If she falls In one iota of the work she has assumed. Of the children not much Is to be expected. The only appeal that can be made to them Is through their affection for their father, and both they and the wife might well deny themselves the pleasure of fighting for the sake of the husband and father whom they make miserable.