Neglectful Parents, 1916-Style

A letter to the editor in the Southern Planter, January 1916 issue

We need a little less luxury and a little more industry on the part of American parents today. The bridge playing, tango dancing, joy riding mother and father of this modern era cannot complain if, as a result of the neglect they give their children, find them growing up into young men and women who sneer at virtue and applaud viciousness. The growing child is acutely susceptible to surrounding environment, and when the parents become so infatuated with the outrageous features of modern society life, then the children not only follow in their footsteps, but go them one better and indulge to an even more reckless degree in the same pastimes and vicious recreations that the parents condone.

Homes are becoming scarcer every day in the cities of America, while mere places of existence are increasing [boarding houses] at a rate that is unfortunate indeed.

--F.H. LaBaume, Roanoke, Va.