Tuesday Night
Dearest Children,
Thank you for the beautiful hose, a very acceptable gift, but you should not have been so generous. I received the package Saturday when I came home for the office. You wont mind if I tell you I take size 9 ½ and as the hose were from Garfinckel and I had to make a flying trip in town anyway, I changed them for my regular size. For my shoe size, I would take a 10, but my foot is narrow and I do not like the way a 10 slithers around my ankle. As I told Wulllie, I had two pair of hose go bad on Thursday and Friday, so I am delighted with your birthday gift. A big kiss for one and all.
I did go to bed on Sunday with a very happy heart. I know the children talked longer than was necessary, but it was wonderful to hear them. I was sorry not to say hello to Sibyl, but I am always breathless on a long distance call and I know she was caring for Jimmie. Doesn’t Wullie’s train work? Why did Chuckie ask for an electric train. Give me the low down on that.
I know that you are all happy to be together again, and I hope you make the most of the week Wullie had at home. Was sorry to hear he had a Awful Awful, but hope it has left your family for good now that it has done its worst for all.
I had a very plesant birthday. I received lots of cards, Bill gave me a box of chocolates (on the side) – I won’t accept money for picking him up in the mornings – and Anita gave me a screen for the apartment and a purse silent butler. Saturday night we went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I cannot think of any play we have seen that is more vulgar, coarse and crudely treated. I do not care for Tennessee Williams and it makes my blood chill to hear the loug guffaws of the audience when there is a particularly distasteful comment on sex. I was hopeful that there would be something to redeem it, but the curtain fell and that was that.
I am glad you like the top coat, Willie and I hope you are sure that it fits well. No use to keep a coat like that if it does not fit perfectly. I hope you will enjoy it.
Anita and I have talked a lot about Chuckie, and would like so much to help. I believe she is in favor in having him see a psychiatrist. Surely there is a good one a Fitzsimmons, of all places. At Anita’s school, if the guidance teacher finds it necessary to recommend such an interview for one of the pupils, he or she is sent to a very good doctor at Andrews Field. The longer you delay in doing something about Chuckie the greater harm you are doing him. For some reason, he seems to have a block against certain things and is obviously frustrated. If he sees a doctor, I believe in such cases the parents are included also. It is just as necessary that you do something to help Chuckie change his attitude, and most of all to get enough food which he badly needs at this age, as it is to have Shonnies eyes and teeth fixed. He will be a very unhappy boy if you do not do it. I wonder if perhaps this may not be the case, as far as his food and eating are concerned. He has had a poor appetite, and by eating so little his stomach has become so small that he cannot eat much. Now what has caused this. Perhaps by hearing so often that Shonnie and Jimmie eat so well. Comparisons can make him draw more and more into himself and he may be doing it all subconsciously. I remember when I visited you in England and Shonnie was eating all that cereal and getting it all over her little face, Chuckie would sit and watch her and we all would coax and threaten him to eat. It could be that it really turned him against food to see Shonnie all smeared with it. He could be a very sensitive person and that possibility not considered in the rush of living. May I make this suggestion. At table, sit Chuckie next to which ever one of you he seems to work with best, and do not sit him next to Shonnie. Whether it is Sibyl or Wullie, a little word of encouragement about eating something while it is hot, etc, but at no time ever again, compare his lack of appetite with the other two, and try to refrain from commenting on how well Shonnie and Jimmie eat, but thank God silently for it. Now that Wullie is home, Chuckie may take an interest in things again, but it is possible that he just did not care about anything when Wullie was away. I could have died when he answered my question on the phone. I said, “Are you doing well in school?” He came out with a dejected and simple “No”, so I immediately said, “But you are going to do better”. You know that you, Sibyl, have written me, long before I came out ther, how Shonnie overshadowed him at times. Chuckie could be reacting to this without either you or his realizing that he is doing it. But unless you know about this from a professional advisor, you cannot know the proper treatment. I do know that you should not allow Shonnie to tease him. It may seem that I am advising special concessions for Chuckie, and that is exactly what will be necessary for a while if you want to help him adjust himself and be a happy, healthy boy. It must be done without hurting Shonnie, too, so you can see that it will be a serious task that is going to take teamwork. I do hope that you will give thoughtful consideration to having him see the doctor at Fitz., and as Anita says, teachers do not advise a parent to take such a course unless there is support from the principal and the childs behavior really warrants it. Try to find out and correct what is behind all this, you owe it to him. Chuckie is unhappy about it or he would not have answered me like he did on Sunday. DON’T LET ANYONE TEASE HIM!
Are you having more snow? It is very cold here now, but I do not care if we do not see snow all winter.
Work is not quite heavy as it was the past two weeks, but the situation is far from resolved and as anything can break at any time, we will continue our Sunday. I take it on Dec 9th and 30th. The government is getting the 24th off which gives a four day holiday to most people, but we are communications, of course we will have to work. I will work on the 22nd, but have asked for the 23rd, 24th and 25th. This time I spoke up. I may as well draw a line between dedication and being a willing horse.
Wullie, did I ask in the last letter if you were going to Fitz about your face? What has happened to it, - has it gotten any smaller or do you think it will have to be cut out? Do not put it off.
I do hope that you both will understand that I am not being fanatical about Chuckie, but I hear so much about these cases from Anita, and how the facilities are there to help the children if only the parents would cooperate. What worries Anita most, is the awful things that teachers enter into the records that follow the child right through school and which you would never see. It is all a part of this modern scheme of things and some reports remind one of junior criminal records. I suppose that a lot of it comes from the lack of discipline of the modern child, both in the home and school, and so the child suffers because instead of the teacher having some understanding of what has happened, she records a disparaging item that is never erased. The more uncooperative a child is the greater chance he runs of having all this against him. These records by the way, are what Anita complains keep her from teaching music. An unkind teacher can really do a job on a child.
I want to send a note to the children, so I will close this for tonight in the hope that you will believe that everything I have written is out of my real love for all.
Loads of love and good luck to all.
Always
Mury
Monday 12th
