Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 139, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1918 — Rest for Mothers. [ARTICLE]

Rest for Mothers.

The moat ‘ important personage tn tha household is the mother. She la worth more to her children as a mother, a counselor, a close personal friend, a genial companion, a sympathetic teacher, wise and watchful guardian, than she can possibly be as a seamstress or cook. Let her be slow to waste herself in duties that are not supreme, or lose the preciousness of her home life by making herself a slave to what is not essential. Here is a piece of work she can do, but some beautiful purpose that might elevate her own and her children’s lives could be accomplished in the same time, and must be set aside for it. What are her woman’s wit and ingenuity for if they cannot help her to some device by which she can accomplish the double good of saving herself and assigning the work to some other woman’s hands? The mothers of our homes have too little rest, too little actual leisure; they are always under pressure of ceaseless duties, and they do not stop to consider whether it might not be wiser to accomplish less and make, better workmanhip; to drop a part of their efforts, with less divided aim, to the rest. The mother does not even follow the teachings of her own best Judgment in these matters. Other people decide upon her duties and plan her work for her, and she submits. She rebels perhaps, and protests more or less vigorously; but in the end she submits, and takes up the work/ somebody thinks she ought to do, or adds to her burdens this one thing more which somebody clearly sees she is ordained to carry. And so, harassed and hurried, and pulled; hither and thither, she gets through life in the condition of the poor old soul to whom Heaven looked most attractive as a place where she was “going to do nothing forever and ever.”