c.March-April, 1928 — Chicago clubwomen, Chicago IL

Flaming youth may be sophisticated, but it will breed the super-race of modern times.

Wild? Well — maybe the modern generation is having its taste of freedom. I’ve seen these wild parties they talk of. Yes, I know and admit that the flappers and boys of this age are wise beyond their years.

Unrestrained, wild little tigers and tigresses, maybe, but the boys and girls of today will be the leaders of the next generation, and they will be capable leaders.

After “this freedom” they are reveling in, these children are going to grow up with a profound knowledge of life and its problems, and they are going to look at the problems of the next generation with sympathy and understanding.

These children are going to be equipped to advise and guide the children of a few years from now.

Our mothers were kept in a sublime state of ignorance by their parents. They were utterly incompetent to help us, or to give us an understanding of life.

Automobile rides, with their problems for the girls, hip flasks, petting and all the other “failings” of the modern girl constituted an unsolvable problem for mothers who were trained in the philosophy of “Little Women.” Why, our cloistered mothers were downright incompetent to deal with any of the questions their daughters and granddaughters are solving every day.

The younger generation is elastic, and not bounded by a lot of the traditions that used to be sacred cows.

Twenty-five years from now girls will be able to ask their mothers how to overcome some of the obstacles to right living that have been created by a speeding civilization, and will be able to get a usable answer. Now they don’t get anything, if they ask, because mothers don’t know anything about it.

[Van Winkle doesn’t think that “experiences” as such should be sought out by youngsters.]

Life will come to meet girls and boys fast enough, without being sought out. But problems solved leave the children wiser and better, and that wisdom will be passed on to the next crop of youngsters, with much profit.

Source: The Tampa Times, April 6, 1928, p. 2.