some activity. Far wiser is it to rely upon work and other interests, inside the home or without, in which variety and inspiration can play their part.
Children both simplify and complicate the adjustment. They provide an outlet for the affections, but they offer the temptation to emotional dependence. Some parents become almost parasitic in this respect, handicapping the children in their efforts at self-expression and preventing them from the freedom which their development requires. Even where this does not happen, the problem of training and of education is most difficult. The mother must be both father and mother. Hitherto, the children have had the benefit of the thought and experience of two people. Widowhood involves a loss which the mother cannot make up by duplicating herself through the devotion of more time and energy. She must seek other contacts and other associates for her children to compensate them for what their father would have contributed.
When it is the father who has been left, the problem becomes still more perplexing. Only too often in the absence of the mother the family breaks. She has been the home, and without her the whole structure collapses, leaving the hus-
