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why won't they let you
grow up?
Dear Miss Taylor: It's really too bad, the way they're trying to keep you from growing up.
Just the other day you revealed, quite simply and openly, that you had more than a passing interest in Lieutenant Glenn Davis, the ex-West Pointer of All-America football fame. You let it be known that you were most unhappy that you and he would be separated while he was on duty in Korea. You said you would be wearing his pin all that time.
What could be more natural for a 17-year-old girl? How could you have been more honest — with yourself and your public?
Yet a good many columnists at once began clucking their tongues fondly but sadly and in general expressing sorrow or shock over the fact that you're no longer a child.
This sort of thing seems to us quite ridiculous. It's a form of pressure that has the effect, however unintentionally, of making normal girlhood and young womanhood difficult for fine people like you and Jane Powell and Peggy Ann Garner. It penalizes you in a way, for the public interest and support which you have earned — making the widespread good-will that is felt for you into a thing that might be bad for you personally.
You'll come through all this in fine manner, we have no doubt at all — but why on earth must things be made tough for you? Why can't you be given the opportunity to develop naturally through normal experiences, exactly like any other girl of your own age?
Young love, we keep remembering, is kind of wonderful. It's certainly not incredible, extraordinary or reprehensible. But most of us older folks seem to have forgotten the facts of life.
Don't mind that, though, Elizabeth. It's your life you're leading. Let's hope people will let you lead it simply and sanely. You'll certainly have all our best wishes while you do.
II
EDITOR
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