Advice to Women During WWII

Carpe diem or ‘seize the day!” Ruth Millett was lamenting that it was too late to see Paris as it had been occupied by Hitler for 4 years. When this article was written in April of 1944, Paris was only 5 or 6 weeks away from being liberated by the Allied forces from German occupying forces.
On June 14, 1940, German troops entered Paris. French forces had withdrawn from the city the day before and it was declared an “open city.” Even though this was done in order to prevent its destruction, it seemed to many that Paris would never be the same.

We, The Women

It’s too late now to see Paris. Those of us who had planned to visit there “someday” put it off too long. It is easy to put things off until they are no longer possible. It's so easy that we do it over and over again.

An attractive girl, thinking she can marry any time, turns down one man after another. And one day she realizes that her dates rapidly are getting fewer and that the men she goes out with aren’t as attractive as the men who used to take her around.

A family plans to buy a movie camera and take pictures of the whole tribe together. But they wait so long the circle is broken, and the opportunity is lost forever. A man slaves for years so that he can take things easy and afford to play when he is older, but the habit of work becomes so fixed that when he has the money he can't enjoy taking it easy.

A woman tells herself that she will have time for outside interests when her children are grown, but by the time they have left home she has grown so little with the years she can't find anything outside her home that interests her. A busy person keeps thinking that he will have time for friendship later on, only to find that when he is ready to devote some time to his friends they have moved on to new friends they have no time for him.

Today, because of the uncertainty of the future, it is more important than ever that we find the time and the way to do the things that are important to us. We had better find time for home life, for fun, and for really getting acquainted with those we love right now. – By Ruth Millett, 1940

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