You want to go to a dance or perhaps the theater, “all the other girls are going,” but your mother has good and sufficient reasons for not allowing you to go. Now, instead of arguing, complaining and going off to your room in a huff, saying unkind words to your good mother, words which tear and gnaw at her heart, speak to that inner self; call it out; go to your room and peer straight into the trouble with YOU, not that wrong idea that the fault is with your mother.
Think deeply of this fact; she is your mother, nothing that would add to your pleasure or advantage would she deprive you of――not for an instant. But as your mother she knows what is best for you; she may know something about the other girls, about the kind of youths going with them, she may know something about your health that is not advisable to tell you just at the moment. In your room think all these matters over; throw out that unreasonable and false self, and when you have done so, go to your mother, ask her forgiveness and also beg her to tell you her reasons.
Now that your inner self is in control, your mother will tell you confidentially her reasons, and when they are clear to you, the happiness which follows is far beyond any mere physical pleasure you can ever obtain. After a few times of this self-drilling, the obedience to your mother will be a second nature.
Still more fights with your inner self will have to follow, but one by one, you can conquer the enemy. Never become discouraged if you fail, just keep on trying and in the end you will win over all evil and wrong impulses.
A girl who disobeys her mother or father is the girl who as a wife will be divorced.
The girl who wants to “be a good Indian” will, when a woman, be a repulsive savage.
The girl who deceives her mother will deceive her husband.
Remember that marriage does not make a happy woman, but a woman has it in her power to make marriage a happiness.
The most reasonable woman will have hours of being unreasonable, but these are the hours you should be unreasonable with yourself while searching for reasons.
The jolly, vivacious girl; the girl who is happy obeying her mother, contented in school or laughs while at work, is really a girl in whom every organ and function are properly adjusted. In other words, a girl who is in perfect health is a joy to herself and makes life worth living for others. It is the same idea that I have given you regarding a perfectly-running machine――every part works harmoniously and there is no complaining, no feeling of harshness in life, no grinding or jolting as you go along.