e grandparents often
feel it their duty to help in this way. Dr. Josephine Hemenway Kenyon,
director of the Health and Happiness Club of _Good Housekeeping_, has
often made the wise suggestion that fathers give, in addition to any
other wedding present, a $500 or $1000 bond, called "The Baby Bond," to
be kept to meet the expenses of bringing the first baby into the world
and protecting its first year of life. This idea appealed so strongly to
some parents that Dr. Kenyon went even further, suggesting that young
parents who can afford it take out a ten-year endowment policy of $1000
for their thirteen-year-old children, to be available when these
children are twenty-three, if needed, to help them start their own
families.

The question of the right age for parenthood is naturally of importance.
But it depends on many factors, chief among which, after the economic
problem has been disposed of, are physical and psychological health.
Some time between twenty-three and twenty-eight seems to me to be a
satisfactory time for a woman to bear her first baby; but any time up to
thirty-five presents no difficulty, provided the physical and mental
conditions are healthy and propitious. Plenty of women of forty and over
have been known to go through first and subsequent pregnancies
successfully, but there is no reason for postponing children to this age
except failure to find the right mate earlier in life. People who have
their first child when over thirty-five are themselves over fifty when
the child goes through adolescence--an age which may make it difficult
to help the child meet its crucial problems in the tone of one good
friend to another. If you cannot have your children before thirty-five,
you must make every effort to remain young enough for spiritual
companionship with them. The best age for parenthood is to be
determined, not in terms of years, but of physical and psychological
health and happiness.

In marriage psychological health and happiness are largely dependent on
love. It is of the utmost importance that every child should be a love
child, in the best sense of the term. Love is a splendor that eludes
definition, but it is characterized by an inexhaustible desire for the
beloved's company and a steadily burning fire of enthusiasm and
admiration. So-called disillusion in love comes from the failure of
these emotions. Young lovers, through plenty of courting and
companionship, should try to make sure of the lasti