An Autobiography

mind to grasp things as he did, and had more school education, having graduated from a three years’ high school. My husband more and more declined to discuss things with me; as he said, “I didn’t know anything about it.” When I’d ask he’d say, “Oh, you wouldn’t understand if I’d tell you.” So here I am, at forty-five years, hopelessly dull and uninteresting, while he can mix with the brightest minds in the country as an equal. He’s a strong Progressive man, took very active part in the late campaign, etc. I am also Progressive, and tried my best, after so many years of shut-in life, to grasp the ideas you stood for, and read everything I could find during the summer and fall. But I’ve been out of touch with people too long now, and my husband would much rather go and talk to some woman who hasn’t had any children, because she knows things (I am not specifying any particular woman). I simply bore him to death because I’m not interesting. Now, tell me, how was it my fault? I was only doing what I thought was my duty. No woman can keep up with things who never talks with anyone but young children. As soon as my children grew up they took the same attitude as their father, and frequently say, “Oh, mother doesn’t know.” They look up to and admire their father because he’s a man of the world and knows how to act when he goes out. How can I urge my daughters now to go and raise large families? It means by the time you have lost your figure and charm for them they are all ashamed of you. Now, as a believer in woman’s rights, do a little talking to the men as to their duties to their wives, or else refrain from urging us women to have children. I am only one of thousands of middle-class respectable women who give their lives to raise a nice family, and then who become bitter from the injustice done us. Don’t let this go into the wastebasket, but think it over.

Yours respectfully,

⸻ ⸻

New York, January 11, 1913

My Dear Mrs. ⸻:

Most certainly your letter will not go into the waste-paper basket. I shall think it over and show it to Mrs. Roosevelt. Will you let me say, in the first place, that a woman who can write such a letter is certainly not “hopelessly dull and uninteresting”! If the facts are as you state, then I do not wonder that you feel bitterly and that you feel that the gravest kind of injustice has been done you. I have always tried to insist to men that they should do their duty to the women even more than the women to them. Now I hardly like to write specifically about your husband, because you might not like it yourself. It seems to me almost incredible that any man who is the husband of a woman who has borne him nine children should not feel that they and he are lastingly her debtors. You say that you have had nine children, that you did all your own work, including washing, ironing, housecleaning, and the care of the little ones as they came along; that you sewed everything they wore, including trousers for the boys and caps and jackets for the girls while little; that you helped them all in their school work and started them in music; but that as they grew older you got behind the times, that you never belonged to a club or society or lodge, nor went to anyone’s house, as you hardly had time to do so; and that in consequence your husband outgrew you, and that your children look up to him and not to you and feel that they have outgrown you. If these facts are so, you have done a great and wonderful work, and the only explanation I can possibly give of the attitude you describe on the part of your husband and children is that they do not understand what it is that you have done. I emphatically believe in unselfishness, but I also believe that it is a mistake to let other people grow selfish, even when the other people are husband and children.

Now, I suggest that you take your letter to me, of which I send you back a copy, and this letter, and then select out of your family the one with whom you feel most sympathy, whether it is your husband or one of your children. Show the two letters to him or her, and then have a frank talk about the matter. If any man, as you say, becomes ashamed of his wife because she has lost her figure in bearing his children, then that man is a hound and has every cause to be ashamed of himself. I am sending you a little book called Mother, by Kathleen Norris, which will give you my views on the matter. Of course there are base and selfish men, just as there are, although I believe in smaller number, base and selfish women. Man and woman alike should profit by the teachings in such a story as this of Mother.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

January 21, 1913

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt:

My dear Sir⁠—Your letter came as a surprise, for I wasn’t expecting an answer. The next day the book came, and I thank you for your ready sympathy and understanding. I feel as though you and Mrs. Roosevelt would think I was hardly loyal to my husband and children; but knowing of no other way to bring the idea which was so strong in my mind to your notice, I told my personal story. If it will, in a small measure, be the means of helping someone else by molding public opinion, through you, I shall be content. You have helped me