A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel B. La
A Room Of Our Own By Isable B. Lafollette "HOW did you used to punish us for taking money out of your purse?" asked our 16-year-old Judy recently. "I don't recall that I ever did punish you for...
...We were always looking for ways and means to achieve the results, the values we wanted, and looked on ourselves as instruments...
...Years ago a dear friend who was a musician and worked with me on my voice brought this issue so clearly before me that I can never be sufficiently grateful o her...
...If one criticizes a piece of writing or a performance of some kind their feelings are immediately wounded which unfortunately usually shuts off the individual's ability to make constructive use of the criticism...
...Whether it was a speech or a reception I was giving, I could count on constructive suggestions afterward, and the point that was vital was that she gave the criticism in such a way that my voice or other activity might have belonged to another person for any wounded feelings on my part...
...As I later told Judy who had overheard the goings-on from the next room, I was struggling to get Sherry to be honest not only with me but more important, with herself in assessing a situation...
...IWAS so impressed with this approach to life that I have tried very hard to communicate it to our children, and am happy to feel that Bob 3rd and Judy have incorporated much of this method in their living because it frees one from the bonds of hyper-sensitivity and self-consciousness, and enables one to increase enormously his effectiveness...
...Rather than thinking in terms of punishment or retribution for the Japanese people, he is laying the foundation for them to build a new way of life...
...One morning, for example, as I stood beside the piano I complained of said voice, "It won't work...
...THIS happened in a very crowded period of my life when Phil was Governor and I was doing a great deal of speaking, entertaining, and engaging in other such activities in which my friend often participated, and I never saw her when she wasn't approaching whatever the task might be in this creative—or what she called "artistic"—manner...
...I don't recall that I ever did punish you for that particular transgression," I replied, "My whole aim in so-called 'Punishment' with you kids was to get you to face your situation honestly and realistically...
...You mean YOU aren't working IT...
...Phil, however, brought me sharply to reality by pointing out that the more people spreading the good word the better...
...When the children have complained now and again about an individual teacher's "unfairness" or lack of understanding, I point out that they cannot make the teacher over...
...In other words, the more we cultivate the ability to get outside ourselves and see the larger picture, the better for us all...
...But apparently he is big enough to subordinate the personal and to think in terms of the total picture for the future...
...MacArthur's handling of the Japanese...
...Certainly he could be humanly excused for a feeling of personal bitterness for what he and his men have suffered at their hands...
...Isn't it strange how people's memories change under the impact of war...
...I keep emphasizing that we have to examine the situation critically, and do our best to handle it...
...She shot back at me, "What do you mean IT won't work...
...With a young child, and with far too many adults, it is very difficult for them to separate their abilities, behavior, etc., from their egos...
...We all have biases due to our individual temperaments and experience, but we can at least try to see clearly and arrive at a near-as-possible truth...
...I recall that years ago when I would go campaigning and follow Phil into a community I was irritated to find local candidates not only making his arguments, but using his figures of speech and stories, which didn't seem fair...
...that when the individual gets out into the world, he will find these situations facing him on every side and he will get nowhere by assuming that "they are all out of step but Jim...
...A lot of the facts are not pleasant, but on the other hand there is a lot of wonderful material in this old world of ours...
...AFRIEND recently commented, "I went to college with several young people who had been brought up in Japan by missionary parents, and they loved the Japanese people...
...that it is up to the student to get at what that teacher wants and to meet her requirements whether the student agrees with her or not...
...We have a magnificent example of this approach to a terribly difficult problem in Gen...
...Such emotional instability as we see exhibited in certain places today with individuals on a hate-binge, impedes the kind of thinking, the kind of ideals we all really want...
...Isn't each one of us helping the cause of future peace by keeping our eyes on the total picture, and rather than thinking in terms of punishment, thinking in terms of growth...
...Shortly afterwards I had a knockdown-drag-out with nine-year-old Sherry whom I found taking liberty with the truth of a situation—nothing really vital in itself, but the common error of telling what she hoped and wanted to be the case rather than the actual facts...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 37
