The reason I say the situation is abnormal is this: usually when a mother objects to her daughters' behavior it is on some definite basis of opposing the things they _do_--like going to too many parties or falling in love with the wrong man. You have very little fault to find with the things we do. Your objections are on a basis of what we _are_--or, rather, of what we _are not_: that we are not orthodox, that we are not hypocrites, that we are not the kind of daughters the Victorians approved of. "Hypocrites" will sound paradoxical; but you have confessed that you would rather have us lie to you than to disagree with you; that you would rather have us be sentimental about "the way a girl should treat her mother" than to learn how we ought to treat ourselves. You call that being "respectful" and think that harmony is possible only under such conditions. We call it being "insulting," and think that it's the one sure way of destroying any chance of harmony. If we respect you it must be because we think you worthy of the truth: anything else is degrading to both sides. You'll say you can't be satisfied to live with us and not give advice and all the other things that are part of a mother's duty. You may give all the advice you want to; the keynote of the new situation will be that we'll take the advice if we believe it's right; if not we'll ignore it, just as a man ignores his friend's advice when he feels it to be wrong. Of course the wise person doesn't give much advice; he simply lives his life the best way he knows how. That's the only bid he can make for emulation. If we tell you that we don't approve of the creed you have made you mustn't be surprised if we try to formulate one of our own. There's no reason for us to ask you to change just because we're your daughters. You must do as you believe. But you must grant us the same privilege. We disagree about fundamentals. If our beliefs were merely the vague, unformed ideas of children you might try to change them. But it's too late now. So we can live together harmoniously only if we give up the foolish attempts at "influencing." We're not living three generations ago. We've had Shaw since then, and parents and children aren't doing the insulting things to each other they used to do. Among intelligent people some of the old issues can never raise their heads again. And so, it's for you to decide:--whether we shall build on the new foundation together or separately.