"THE MOTHER AND HER GIRL"

(from an Edwardian '"Girl's Own Annual')

'There is no greater service that a mother can render her boy or her girl than to teach him or her to live without her.  This is a noble aphorism, which sounds very fine while the children are young and in no danger of becoming independent of the mother for some years to come.  But the finest aphorism is apt to lose its glory as the period approaches when it may be put into practical operation.  Then mental shakiness is apt to take the place of noble resolution.  But Time is inexorable, and the boy in knickers today becomes in the twinkling of an eye the boy in his first long trousers.   And the day is always unexpected when the girl puts up her hair, lets down her dress, and is transformed into the young lady.   It is a very brief span of time from the blade to the ear, and to the full corn in the ear.   Then life must be lived without the mother; when she is no longer the chief supply of counsel, or the father the chief supply of money.   It is a particularly hard time in the life of a mother when she realises that she is no longer needful to her children; when they no longer turn to her for judgment, or defer to her opinion, or feel that she is as essential to their lives as formerly.   But that time comes to all, and then it is that the mother reaps her reward as she sees that her training has borne fruit in the self-reliance of the daughter.  Her joy is then - and also her pain.  But that is life, and no method has yet been found to make the life of a mother painless. '

(sadly, for all us Mums, it is as true now as it was then.)