Herself: Talks with Women Concerning ThemselvesLowry, E. B. (Edith Belle)
Science
Herself: Talks with Women Concerning Themselves
Lowry, E. B. (Edith Belle)
Sexual ethics; Women -- Health and hygiene
"In a small farming community of California containing about forty
children of school age, it was discovered that immoral practices had
been carried on for years among the older children. One little girl,
being new to the school and also being in the habit of telling her
mother everything, repeated some of the sights she had seen during the
recess and noon hours, and also some of the conversation she had heard
among the children. The mother, being horrified at the child's
revelations and knowing the child must have some foundation for her
stories, told a friend about it. This woman told some of her friends who
were the mothers of the children the little girl had named to her
mother. Of course, the children were questioned and denied all knowledge
of things the child had mentioned. The mothers were indignant that their
children should be accused of anything like that. They unquestionably
believed the denial, making no effort to find out if there might be any
truth in the report. That mother and her little one were 'sent to
Coventry' with a vengeance. Later some of these mothers had cause to
repent of their carelessness in having neglected or disregarded the
warning. They found to their sorrow that the little girl was not telling
an untruth, after all.
"The trouble with the mother in the small community is that she judges
her children by her own past. She, perhaps, had an entirely different
environment from that of her children and because she came out all
right, naturally sees no use in bothering about talking to her girls.
'They will learn these things soon enough,' she says when the subject is
mentioned. That they either already have learned them or may be learning
them in a manner of which she would be the last to approve, she does not
take into consideration. An attempt to warn such a mother often is
misunderstood."
That young women realize their need and are anxious for any help is
shown by these letters. From New York a girl writes, "I am twenty-two
years of age and as yet know nothing about the mysteries of life, and I
am beginning to worry about it as I am keeping company with a young man
and expect to become engaged to him. I know nothing of what is expected
of me when I get married and I know there are a number of girls just
like me and that they are worried, too."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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