Nellie McClung, "Pleasures—Yes and Regrets,"
Canadian Home Journal May 1931: 28. Courtesy of City of
Edmonton Archives.
I do not like to look back. It is a sure sign of
advancing years. But at the request of the Managing Editor
of the Canadian Home Journal I will . . .
I am glad that I always took the time to read to my
children when they were little, whether the dishes were
washed or not. I knew the dishes would keep—you can depend
on dishes—but the days of childhood are so quickly sped! I
am glad I knew that, even then . . . I am glad too that I
kept alive my own ambitions even when it would have been
much easier to become "a home-loving heart who had no
thought beyond her children." I had read an obituary eulogy
once where that sentence was used and it seemed to me that
it portrayed a state from which every woman might well pray
to be delivered. . . . I have my regrets, of course. I wish
I had known more of child psychology. I can see many places
where I might have done better. But children are charitable
and ready to believe that parents are doing the best they
can.
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