RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30043, 30 January 1963, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

GRUB STAKES

Before we left on our camping holiday, our attention was drawn to a magazine article in which it was suggested mother might have a better rest if the children were simply given money each day and told to organise their own meals. The idea sounded attractive—the scheme called for the children to work together. One might buy sausages one day, and offer to share them with one of the others if he promised to purchase chops the next morning. It was further suggested that if the children caught fish or gathered pipis, they could have the money for ice cream, etc. One of the glowing promises made by the proposal was that then was no

need for the family to gather at a specified time for meals; if some of the youngsters had wandered off to another beach, they could buy fish and chips or a pie there. Each child was responsible for its own dishes, which sounded

good, too. There must be something wrong with our children. We thought it all over very carefully, and decided »o abandon the scheme. We thought it might be too costly, considering their appetites, to provide each one, each day, with what would be regarded as a reasonable sum. And we thought that three weeks of pie-eating might be a little too much. And we regarded the risk of the younger ones trying

to eat jelly-fish, after having spent their money on riotous living, as being extreme. And we wondered what would happen to them if they wandered off to another bay to buy their fish and chips, and what would happen to us wondering about them. And we could see there might be a conflict of interests in winning possession of the frying pan, perhaps a tendency to allow the dishes to accumulate. never a sound plan in hot weather. And we thought that the co-operative system might fail because of the widely vaiying tastes of the children. It was a good scheme; but perhaps it should be tried first by Outward’