MOTHERS WHO GO TO WORK

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26126, 31 May 1950, Page 7

MOTHERS WHO GO TO WORK

COMMENT AT TEACHERS’ CONFERENCE LONDON, May 29. A woman teacher was applauded at a conference of the National Association of Head Teachers at Leamington to-day when she defended the thousands of young children in Britain who are suffering neglect because their mothers take full-time work. The cheers were loudest when she recited these lines written by the Bishop of Rochester: Bless the clean clinic, which weighed me with care. And the nursery school teacher who tooth-combed my hair, And the youth movement leaders, so careworn for me, But my mother, God bless her, she never sees me. The teacher said that many women went to work because they preferred it to working in the home, but their children suffered in consequence. Some children went to play centres until their mothers returned from work, but many ran wild in the streets. It was probably during this time of waiting for the mother to come home that the seeds of juvenile delinquency were sown. Older children, who had far too much money to spend, were bribed to do housework v>hich the mothers should do. A resolution was carried urging that for their children’s sake mothers should not be encouraged to undertake work that kept them from the home for long hours.