I am reading over a letter from a girl who says, “I honestly love my mother.  I am proud of the things she can do and I admire her beauty....  I am twenty-two years old, very ordinary looking and not a social success.  I am a constant disappointment to mother.  Our opinions about everything differ.  We cannot agree upon the most trivial things.  When father was living he laughed at us and his genial spirit made things easier but the last two years have been dreadful.  What can we do?  Mother does not need me.  When I am away on a visit everything goes smoothly at home and her letters to me are affectionate.  I love them and have kept them to read when it does not seem as if she could care for me.  My uncle has asked me to come to their home in D——­ to be a companion for his seventeen-year-old daughter who is lame.  I love her and we get on well together.  Ought I leave my mother and go?  She says I may do just as I wish and does not seem to mind the thought of my going....”

Here is a clear case of clash of temperaments.  Both are to blame, each is misunderstood.  In this particular case it seems wise that the daughter should, for a time at least, accept her uncle’s offer.  She may learn from a distance to understand her mother better and her mother may more fully appreciate her daughter.  Often it is far better that two people who constantly clash should learn apart to respect and honor one another than to live in a quarrelsome, fretful atmosphere which is bound to banish deep affection and respect as well.  Some daughters cannot be their best at home and some mothers can never reveal their best selves in their daughters’ presence.  That such can be the case is most unfortunate and wrong.  Away back in the daughter’s childhood someone was careless, in early girlhood a thin partition was raised which shut out mutual love and trust.  It might then have been destroyed, but was left until it became a barrier almost impossible to break down.

But there are some girls who are misunderstood by their mothers, and who because of circumstances must accept it and learn, despite misunderstanding, to let love triumph.  There is much that every girl owes to her mother even though it be true that she is unfair and unjust.

One of the sweetest home makers I have ever known, in whose family it seems to me no cross or critical word is ever spoken, whose boys and girls trust her absolutely and love her devotedly, learned her patience and forbearance, acquired her fine courtesy and graciousness in the years when she was a misunderstood girl and had to live in an atmosphere of petulance, ill-temper and selfishness.

The misunderstood girl whatever may be the reason for the misunderstanding must cultivate frankness.  She must learn to be generous, she must help people to understand her.  She must believe that being misunderstood should deepen her sympathy and increase her tact.  One of the most marvelous teachers in our country today, who succeeds in awakening dull hearts and minds, in controlling wayward and wilful childhood, when asked to explain her power said simply, “I was a misunderstood child.  How I suffered!  My mission is to relieve the suffering of the misunderstood, whatever the cause.”