It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks.
"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It
is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to
talk _at_; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the
flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds
are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of
which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly
disastrous to others.

If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection
may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of
marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of
understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children
that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her
thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements
of her life.

But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams
pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back
to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The
daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A
struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep
in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest
disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and
weariness of life often results.

One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little
group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit
sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a
person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic,