A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel B. La
A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La Fottelle. EVERY parent struggles with the problem of trying to convey the result of his or her experience to children so that they may be able to avoid the...
...And there is considerable feeling as that expressed by one soldier who wrote from Persia, "When I get home I'm going to find out what this war was all about...
...To be personal for a moment, as my problem is typical of that facing thousands of women, I felt quite differently about Phil going overseas than I do about our boy who will be 18 in a few months...
...The child who is fortunate enough thus to assimilate some of life's lessons is all too rare, but if education and learning mean anything, they should give children some equipment to guide them in the decisions that face them every day...
...The American soldier has no such urge...
...These boys accept the fact, and, according to reports from all the fronts, have made a success of whatever task was assigned them, and can even, as Phil's latest letter reports, "get some laughs out of almost any situation...
...Such a question is not in the mind of the Russian or English soldier—it is the primitive matter of driving or keeping the enemy from his own home...
...When it comes to the matter of life and death itself, however, most conscientious parents consider that the stake is so high that they must continue to accept responsibility on decisions...
...I wouldn't take the whole Pacific for one desert county in Texas...
...It was obvious to the most casual observer who could see two or three girls to every man...
...On our last trip in 1939, when Phil was studying various aspects of Britain's problems, and our English friends would offer help, Phil would ask of experts in the various fields, "Will you please let me meet some of the young and coming men in vour field...
...We have to accept the fact that beyond a certain point we are helpless, as the normal healthy young person must meet life on his own two feet...
...Lloyd George was making it years ago when Phil and I were there...
...The cost has often been high, but neither of us has doubted it was worth paying...
...My heart bleeds for the common people of England, and of Canada, Australia, and India, and of Germany, for that matter, but I still, can't get it into my poor old head why our boys should bear the brunt of centuries of mistakes on the part of others...
...Churchill is said to have explained England's share of but 27 per cent on the grounds of Britain's smaller population and—underline this heavily in your mind—Britain's terrific loss of young manhood in 191b which set the country baek a generation...
...He has the all-too-rare quality of acting on his beliefs...
...Even through the emotional havoc of the past two years I have never been able to escape from the intellectual conviction that the course we both agreed on for him to take, was the right one for him...
...The British Have Learned In other words, the British have learned from frightful experience the real cost of war...
...This is no new thought in England...
...Time and again the answer came, "That's a real problem...
...But the nub of the matter for me is this: Phil and many like him were free to make the choice, while our son will be one of the countless millions for whom there is no alternative...
...I asked one recently if he had a nice island picked out for me to retire to in my old age, and he replied, "Lady, you pick one out and I'll give it to you...
...In the secret conferences which we fought one war allegedly to get rid of, we do not know how far we are committed, but the report is that we are to furnish 73 per cent of the men...
...Although those in power played with fire in the period between the last war and this one at a time when they could have prevented the causes of this one, when their leaders come face to face with the question of furnishing life-blood itself, they are thinking of Britain first...
...With the ghastly lesson before our eyes, will it still be experience alone that will put the necessary iron into our leaders to guard our rights as well as committing the lives of thousands, not only precious personally but essential to the future existence of our country...
...And yet our government has taken the responsibility of shipping these men to the far corners of the earth and is committed to the opening of a second front, which we are calmly assured will have the initial cost of half a million lives...
...Cost Of A Second Front Yet every returned soldier I have talked with tells me that the men are living for just one thing—to get the war over with and come home...
...EVERY parent struggles with the problem of trying to convey the result of his or her experience to children so that they may be able to avoid the parent's mistakes...
...Phil is a mature person with a rich experience behind him...
...There aren't any outstanding men in that age group—that generation was killed off in the last war...
...We suffer when we see those we love treading the thorny path that scarred us, yet we have to recognize with our intelligence, if not with our emotions, that experience alone teaches certain truths...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 3
