Medford mail tribune., March 29, 1960, Image 18

Refationship Between Young Generation,
irst Ai Fo Family Life
A king from overseas said
on a recent visit to the United
States and ; Canada, "I must
admit I'm surprised to find
that you have a problem con
trolling young people in such
a cilized pari of the world.
It does not exist in my coun
try; he young people have
tc much respect for their
lflers and for authority."
Mis remark made some ob-'!
rers wonder just which
countries are civilized. For
this king was from what often
is described as darkest Africa:
ti George Rukidi III of
Xopo, Uganda, ip. Central East
Africa. His people, dark
Hinnid Bagtus, hatfe no prob
lem with the young. We do.
The youn of Uganda respect
taair ejd.rs, their parents,
anfi the constituted authori
ties. Do ours?
There Js little doubt that
th relationship between . the
young and the adult genera
tionr in theg advanced coun
tries, he free world of the
west, is at a dismal ebb. No
where else are parente so per
plexed with the problem of
managing1 their own children.
Our state of family life is re
garded by many as critical.
"T h e western family is
rapidly approaching its third
violent crisis," warns - Prof.
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Carle C. Zimmerman of Har
vard University. "This crisis
will be the third manifesta
tion of mass disregard .of the
family in western society . .
The first occurred in Greece,
the second in Rome, and fac
ing these crises neither Greek
nor Roman civilization was
able to survive."
Family Flying Apart
The family, as a unit, seems
to be flying apart. The old
adhesives which hel'd it to
gether seem to be brittle and
cracking.
"Has family life any real
riches anymore?", asks Norma
B. Carson, former women's
head of the Philadelphia
Crime Prevention Bureau.
"No wonder many young
boys and girls are delinquent.
They have no home lives.
They eat out of the refrigera
tor. The members of a family
keep different hours. They
leave notes for one another."
As one suburban mother
put it, "My home has turned
into a filling station. My two
sons and daughter just come
in at meal times to get filled
up. Then out they go."
Family life has been going
downhill for a quarter of a
century, since the 1930s. As
we started the crawl out of
the . economic depression of
that era, we knew that much
had changed and would never
be the same again. People had
been jolted hard. Old time
security, rooted in old time
customs and institutions,
could never quite be recap
tured. Changes were the order
of the day - not only in gov
ernment and economics, but
in education, in child-rearing,
in marriage and family life.
Th Wrong Medicin.
In family life, a costly mis
diagnosis was made. True, the
family was ailing. But we
gave it the wrong medicine.
We- decided that since the
good old days never could be
recaptured, since the family
taffy - pulls, fudge - making,
apple-bobbing, and gams of
lotto of the 1920s were hope
lessly out of date, maybe the
family itself was out of date,
too.
The family dinner table,
with father at the head, would
become just a nostalgic tin
type. The roles of mother and
father, with mother the home-j
maker and father the bread
winner, wouldn't be separate
and distinct anymore; father
would also don an apron and
mother would also wear the
pants. They wouldn't be "par
ents" how formidable! -they'd
be "buddies" to their
children.
They'd meet children "at
their own level." One way
would be for parents to en
courage children to call them
by their first names. So we
were treated for a time to the
ludicrous spectacle of seven-year-old
Junior sashaying into
the living room and arousing
his paunchy father from the
financial pages with the cry,
"Chuck, dinner's ready!"
Children were to make
their own decisions. One
mother, who wanted to be
modern, handed her 10-year-old
daughter a menu when
the family went out to dinner
one Sunday.
"What would you like?"
she asked.
The girl opened up the
menu, then folded it,, and
said, "I'd like a chocolate
soda."
"But this is dinner! You
can't eat that," protested her
mother.
"You asked me what I'd
like," the child rejoined.
The mother, as any sensible
one would, finally went over
the menu with her daughter
and helped her pick out some
wholesome fare.
Needed Strengthening
Today we recognize the mis
diagnosis. Times have chang
ed, true. But it was a mistake
to regard the family as obso
lete, when it was only we who
were out of step. Family life
as an institution is as sound
and as necessary as ever. We
went about weakening it.
What it really needed was to
be strengthened.
The process of strengthen
ing opens up to us today as a
new frontier. We need not
stand pat in the free western
world while a rival culture
threatens to catch up with us,
or overtake us, . or even
"bury" us. We can build up
our basic strength in a way
no armaments could. For the
real strength of a nation is its
families. They are its sinews.
The nation is simply the
roof of the temple. The fami-
lies are its pillars.
"Fathers must again take
(Si) GTS
their rightful role as head of.
. 1 . 1 ,, 1 1 T T
me iamuy, aeciares jr. juiui
R. Cavanagh, Washington
psychiatrist. "Man must ac
cept this responsibility for
which he was designated by
God and nature.
"When man abdicated his
responsibility in the -home, he
forced his wife into a position
of leadership for which she is
not prepared. At the same
time, the male children were
deprived of paternal super
vision. This too frequently re
sults in weak, passive males
inadequate to take over the
leadership of the home."
Need Strong Parents
Children want and need
strong parents. It is confi
dence in their parents which
gives them the "security"
we've been fumbling so long
to find. The poet Kahlil Gib
ran wrote of parents as "the
bows from which your chil
dren as living arrows are sent
forth." And Gibran noted that
even as God, the Archer,
"loves the arrows that flies,
so He loves the bow that is
stable."
Dr. Frieda Kehm, of the
Association for Family Living
in Chicago, has put it this
way: "A child doesn't need
another playmate. He needs
a parent, an adult parent. Too
many of us have made the
mistake , of taking parents
down to the child's level in
stead of offering the child a
blueprint for adulthood."
This is not so much putting
the child in his place as it is
putting the adult in his place.
And that place will quite
naturally be reserved for
every youngster when he gets
there.
Family life has suffered
from the notion that children
have fragile little psyches and
should be allowed to go and
grow their own way, lest par
ental interference somehow
maim them. But the crop of
youngsters pitifully maimed
by lack of training and con
trol has taught us a stark les
son. Must Pull His Weight
Healthy family life requires
that each child pull his
weight, do his share of jobs
and chores, abide by the rules
of group living not only for
the good of the family but for
the good of the child himself.
"Part of growing up is
learning to do certain things
which are tough," comments
Director Elinor Barnstead of
the Family Welfare Associa
tion of Montreal'. "If a child
doesn't learn this he won't be
much good as a grownup. Cat
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Adults Said Ebbing in
ering to children isn't really
giving them anything - except
harm. They won't be able to
get along with their employ
ers later on, or with their
neighbors, or with their community."
Some people think women aren't much
interested in cars ( they're mostly men! ) .
But if your wife sees and drives Valiant just
once, then says it's the car for you don't be
alarmed. The gals have a way of knowing.
She knows she'll look good in Valiant, ride well
in it, have lots of room inside and trunkside.
She's absolutely certain that Valiant will give
HAMLIN
8th
Former President Harry S.
Truman put this in his own
pungent way in a note to
Sen. Estes Kefauver when the
latter was trying to find the
root causes of juvenile de
linquency. Said Truman in a
WE ARE THE MEN WHO
MOTOR CO.
and Front
Advanced
nutshell, "Children nowadays
have too many gadgets to fool
with and not enough chores."
Parents have been cowed a
great deal in recent years.
They've been afraid to stand
up for what they believe.
TRY
THIS
ON
YOUR
WIFE'S
INTUITION
the family budget a new lease on life. And you
know something? she's 100 right.
Valiant does ride well. Torsion-Aire suspension:
soaks up rough-road guff before it can get to
you. There's room inside for a well-fed family
of six, plus a vacation-sized (25 cu. ft.) trunk.
As far as the economy angle's concerned,
Valiant has an inclined engine that gets a slew
Valiant
SELL
-Tune In the Steve Allen Plymouth Show, Monday nights on NBC-TV
6
Children have missed this. As
Country
they need their spinach and
vitamins, so they need parents
they can look up to and. as the
Bible says, honor. They're
crying for leadership, for par
ental values to hold onto, for
of miles from every gallon of regular; a fully
unitized, rust-proofed body; an akernator
electrical system that makes your battery last
longer; a price that makes everybody happy.
So if you usually have to twist her arm a little
when you go to see a new car, you can relax
at your Plymouth -Valiant dealer's. Valiant
does it for you. Just call it intuition.
DICK KNIGHT CO.
33 S. Riverside at' 8th
MAIL TRTBUNE, Medford, Or.
B Tuesday, March 29, 190
reliable guides who know the
pathways of life and can
and will - direct them.
TOMORROW-THE VOR
SHIP OF VIOLENCE
(Distributed by The Register
and Tribune Syndlfcfr)
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