LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Various magazines - 1946-1960

THE IDEA OF SEX EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS!

How did you learn the facts of life? Amazing question, I know, but more amazing still is that not many could truthfully admit that they learnt these all important facts from their parents. It is up to every parent to tell all to their children, but for some unknown reason they shy clear of enlightening their offspring along these lines. Most parents would be up in arms at the idea of sex enlightening being taught in schools, yet when they fall short of educating their own children, someone has to do this job - or the child learns in a most unsatisfactory way - knowledge that should only come from the parents who bore them.

New Idea, 1946

IT'S A SHAME ABOUT STOCKINGLESS WOMEN

Despite that stockings are available in the stores nowadays, the great majority of young women still remains stockingless. I think that this is a great pity. No matter how shapely a woman's leg is, it is greatly improved by a silk stocking. In my opinion, no matter how nice a woman's dress, shoes and hat are, she really does not look well dressed unless she is wearing silk stockings. However, women should insist on stockings that will not only look attractive, but give good service. Surely stocking manufacturers, in these days of modern machinery, can produce a stocking that will not be ruined by one little accident causing a ladder.

New Idea, 1946

ATHEISM? NOT LIKELY!

Dear Sirs:

I thoroughly agree with Dorothy Thompson's article, Woe To Those Who Destroy the Altars! Frankly, I can't believe there is such a thing as a real atheist.

Ladies' Home Journal, 1947

PORNOGRAPHY IN "THE JOURNAL"

Dear Editors:

I am bored by the monotony of your illustrations. You nearly always show a glamorous young woman in any picture. Sometimes a man is included; if so, the picture is of an embracing couple. Much of the advertising, both text and illustration, borders on pornography. Can't you get an art editor with a little more taste and imagination?

Ladies' Home Journal, 1947

POST-WAR BUDGETING FOR FAMILIES

Dear Editors:

I have just finished reading How America Lives, and frankly I am puzzled. Our income is $3150 per year as against the Sheils' $4200, and yet we have all the necessities and many of the luxuries they are denied. Why?

We have four children, three girls and one darling baby boy - ages 7, 4, 3 years, and 8 months. My children have daily popsicles, gum and usually candy, plenty of good food, clothing, skates, tricycles, wagons, and yet we are buying our home, own a car, have a bank note on which we pay $18 per month (car repairs), and manage to keep a small bank balance of $200 or more for an emergency or weekend jaunt.

We have a baby sitter hired by the week, we go out regularly on Tuesday and either Friday or Saturday nights - just the two of us - and take the children out on Sundays and Saturday afternoons.

I know we aren't the world's best managers and there shouldn't be that much difference in the two localities. Then what is the difference?

Ladies' Home Journal, 1947

GIVE US SOME DECENT MARCHES!

Why are our morning radio programs so monotonous? Every morning we hear the same stupid music, the sort that's murdered for a week, and then forgotten. Can't we have at least one station with some decent sort of music, or a few marches. It's seldom that we hear any marches these days, except when the news services commence. Other than that the radio stations seem to have forgotten there are such records. Still, with nearly everyone going crazy over a "new hit", what can one expect? Perhaps one day the broadcasting stations and announcers will spare a little time for a few who like to hear some worthwhile music.

New Idea, 1947

ENOUGH WITH THE SHOW BIZ SCANDAL!

Do film stars’ private lives have to be written up in every newspaper? If two married people have a family argument, divorce is hinted. In reading a review of a recent film I find: “Ava Gardner, in the news because of her association with crooner Frank Sinatra, has never been seen to better advantage, and Kathryn Grayson, who divorced her husband because of cruelty to her, head the female cast.” Was there any need to put in these pieces of scandal? As long as their acting is good, what does it matter about the lives they lead?

The Photoplayer, 1951

GRANNY KNOWS BEST

Grand-daughter had just become engaged, and Gran thought it about time that she learnt how to bake a cake and took her in hand. Gran explained: "You caught your boy with face powder, but if you want to keep him you'll have to know how to use baking powder."

New Idea, 1951

CHILDHOOD SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

Surely we have now reached an age when we might shake off the fetters of Druidism and mythology. Parents little realize the harm they do to childish minds when they buy for their children books of fairy and giant stories or introduce a new world of gnomes and monsters. For, even though they later explain that such stories aren't "really true", the impression of an unknown world has been laid, and the imagination gives birth to a nameless fear which is almost ineradicable. To my mind, all such story books should be banned, together with radio phantasies and horrors, and replaced with natural history, progressive fiction, exploration, and simple science.

New Idea, 1952

GONE WITH THE WIND....FROM A LEFT-HANDED PERSPECTIVE

I suffered all the annoyance of the left-handed person in a right-handed world, until our colored maid noticed one day I was a "southpaw" and remarked with awe: "You know, Miss Audrey, the Lord made all the smart people left-handed." May not be truth but it did bolster my ego a bit!

New Idea, 1955

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