Attack On Mothers Allowing Freedom

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30312, 12 December 1963, Page 2

Attack On Mothers Allowing Freedom

(Neu> Zealand Press Association.) AUCKLAND, November 11. A headmistress last night attacked mothers of girls who allow their daughters to “parade the streets in provocative clothes while expect- . ing all and suqdry to treat them with respect.”

Miss R. L Gardner, head mistress of Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, said: ‘They hope a teen-age escort will protect an adolescent from any attack from louts whose attention she has been inviting through her seductive

I ing tnrougn net seouctive ; appearance.” | She said the mothers of teen-age daughters were [being unfair to the mothers [ of teen-age sons. ! "There are even modern parents who will allow their teen-age daughter complete freedom at night to go where she likes, to any home throwing an open party, or to any kind of coffee bar she chooses, provided she first brings her escort home to introduce him and provided she returns home at a stated hour which can vary from midnight to 3 a.m. on a Sunday,” Miss Gardner said, "Such faith is worthy of a i nobler cause ” she added. Miss Gardner said their faith in their daughters and escorts might not be displaced, but their faith in the standards of the night life of Auckland is incredible and shows complete ignorance of the city or the times they live in. Miss Gardner said during the school prize-giving at the Town Hall that the young generation had been badly let down ; through being allowed to grow up in a world where the parade of vice was so open that it had ceased to arouse revulsion and had some to be accepted as ordinary and even natural. She said society was "too difficult, too complex, and too immoral” tor young girls to be adrift in without the I security of parental guidance and religious faith.

Today both parents need to exert a watchful vigilance if they want their daughters to grow up unscathed. "They cannot leave her protection to chance, to the neighbourhood, or even to her boy friend." Views Supported

Criticism of the upbringing iof young girls made by Miss Gardner were supported today by Auckland welfare workers. Hie director of Catholic Social Services the Rev. father L. V. Downey, said he wholeheartedly endorsed Miss Gardner's “wise, Christ-

ian and well-balanced” remarks. “Parents must realise that the town of Auckland in which they grew up has now become a vast city full of the allurements of night life,” he said. “Over the last 10 years there has been a radical change in the accepted modes of entertainment for young people. “I think much of the trouble is caused because parents have never visited these places of entertainment and are completely unaware of what their children are doing.”

Father Downey - eaid a sound and thorough preparation for marriage was essential if the trend towards immorality was to be altered. “New Zealand cannot afford to neglect the training of their young people tor marriage and family life. Until this training is given it is futile bemoaning the behaviour of the young,” he said.