OUR CHILDREN
Patri, Angelo
Our Children By Angelo Patri THE marriage of a child is always a shock to the parents. They knew that someday this child was likely to marry and leave home, of course. They saw the child preparing...
...They are creating a new family and with it, a new way of living...
...Nobody else can possibly know...
...she will not be accepted by great-aunt Maria...
...she will not be able to live on that income...
...she will not know what to do when he gets one of his headaches...
...he won't like her friends...
...Life calls them and they must go...
...They will not do what their mothers and fathers did, nor will they want to...
...Now he is leaving them to go alone, to carry grave responsibilities about which he is ignorant...
...Nothing so cements a marriage as the first year's effort to adjust, to make things go, without help or interference of any kind...
...She won't know how to manage...
...he won't be able to eat...
...The truth is that nobody knows what the two young things will do or how they will manage...
...Parents guess what will happen under this and that condition...
...Why cannot this child find someone fit for him to marry instead of this person who has roped him in or caught her errant fancy...
...It is the natural way of living...
...The religion is not just the thing, perhaps...
...Worst of all is the person this child is going to marry...
...And it is a grave question whether or not you ought to try to stop it...
...Only yesterday this was a baby, dependent for everything upon his father and mother...
...And that way, too, the respect of the elders is gained and that is a long stride toward success...
...These young people have left babyhood, childhood, and youth behind them...
...What, above all, can be done to stop it...
...That way strength is built up, courage born, self-confidence strengthened...
...He or she is too young, not nearly good enough socially intellectually, financially for this cmld...
...Marriage Is A Private Affair Very little...
...It would, in my experience, help a great deal if both sides of the family agreed not to see the young people for one year, and the yotag people understood that they were to stay by themselves, to themselves for one year before visiting or reporting to their families...
...His father and mother are greatly disturbed...
...The family tree is foreign and that's too bad...
...The choice of a marriage partner is a peculiar, personal, almost instinctive one and only the person most concerned can make the decision...
...They saw the child preparing for the step but still they did not believe it possible...
...After all, children are loaned, not deeded, to their parents and their marriage is as natural, as to be expected, as their growth...
...Privacy For A Year Why not keep out...
...They are standing on the verge of maturity now and nobody can stop that...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 43
