Looking Forward, Kenneth Jr. [best android ereader txt] 📗

a dollar ahead. In 18 years this house will be paid for, and then it will probably fall apart.

The kids, God love them, are wonderful. They help me by doing for themselves and by just being good. Never do I hear a complaint because they have to wear their cousin’s hand-me-downs or because there is no money for treats or Scout uniforms.

If I could get my hair done in a beauty shop and eat dinner out once in a while I’d think I was in heaven. Is this what life was meant to be?

Tired

Ann Landers began her reply, “Only if you’re lucky. ...” *

* Reprinted by permission of Ann Landers and Hall Publisher’s Syndicate

The Quandary of Women

It is quite possible that most women in our rapidly changing civilization have a rougher time of it than men. A woman who lived on a farm two centuries ago was deeply needed and felt secure. She and her home were the center of vocation, recreation, and education. Although she worked hard, she was psychologically secure in her own feeling of worth. She was confident of the great need which she supplied in the lives of her husband and children. Today, household gadgets have relieved woman of some of the work, but the secure emotional foundations of her life have been largely swept away. The home is no longer the place where the family makes its living. Factories and offices beckon the father to a world of business not shared by the rest of his family. Schools grab up the children and take over the responsibility for educating them—frequently, in a way that is quite different from the training of the parents. Although television has added to the recreational aspect of modern homes, most of the really exciting things happen away from home. Automobiles scatter the family in all directions, and the home is often used primarily as a hotel in which to eat and sleep.

The modern housewife is expected to be a fascinating and energetic companion to her husband. She must meet the endless needs of her children. And at the same time she must operate the household, including food-gathering at the grocery store. In addition to these three full-time occupations which stretch her out pretty thin, she should find time to develop her own mind and body, including frequent trips to the beauty salon. After a number of years of this tearing in every direction, most wives begin to feel that, “Life is passing me by.” They begin to question their self-worth. They realize that they are needed less and less by their husbands and children. Unhappiness, divorce, suicide bitterness, and blighted personalities are often the consequences of our rapidly changing culture.

In the United States there are currently around four million divorces a year that affect about a third of a million children mostly under ten years of age. Divorce statistics themselves are not important, but the painful bickering, searing accusations, and damaged egos that lead to a divorce greatly affect the total sum of human happiness.

When a woman tries to live a fuller life in the world outside her home, the path is not smooth. Dr. Ruth B. Kundsin, a prominent Harvard bacteriologist, said:

It is my contention that women in the United States have been victims of both prejudice and discrimination... If she has a sprinkling of Harlowian traits, her male colleagues are flirtatious. If she looks like a benevolent moose, they are merciless and their appraisal of her appearance takes precedence over what she has to say.

Dr. Kundsin would have us consider the enjoyment of living with a

happy, independent woman who is utilizing her talents completely and arrives home with sparkling, challenging experiences of her own to tell and share. ... Couldn’t it be that the love of such a woman is a wondrous, exciting experience? Or does the American male ego really need a female slave in residence?

Just in case it’s beginning to look as though only the women have a rough time of it, there’s a tragedy in the monotonous, routine-filled hours by which most men earn their living. Spending most of the prime years of one’s life fighting to earn an existence severely limits the self-realization and happiness of most men. The world is so full of exciting things to learn, of interesting places to travel, of countless creative hobbies, of body-building sports, and of lovely sunsets and natural beauty that one must wistfully sigh at our limited opportunity to experience the best things in life.

A Hornet’s Nest of Problems

In this chapter we have briefly touched on some of the problems of our confused civilization that scream the loudest for solutions. It would be possible to write several books just describing the “hangovers” of our transitional civilization. Take a deep breath because we haven’t covered even a hundredth of the problems of the present. Help us fill out the long, long list:

The failure to apply scientific methods to solve social problems; the thousands of insidious types of prejudice and prejudice-inspired violence and killing; the hollowness of so much of family and social life; a competitive life pattern that makes it difficult for us to give fellow humans the deep acceptance that their egos need so much; the failure of men to cooperate in joining hands over national boundaries to build a civilization in which all men may be happier, the failure to seek and utilize the abilities of geniuses, the shortage of good teachers; schools that indoctrinate in what to think instead of teaching how to think; the unfortunate attitude that education stops when “schooling” is over; the failure of 40 per cent of our young people to finish high school; the restlessness of our adolescent population; drug addiction; the problem of abortion; mental illness; the failure of prisons to rehabilitate; the growing crime rate; slums that mar our beauty and disgrace our humanity; a countryside made ugly with shoddy stores, screaming signs, and junkyards; the primitive automotive systems which kill over 40,000 people each year; the high