Motherhood endowment

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32639, 22 June 1971, Page 16

Motherhood endowment

Sir,—l should like to ask ”DJ.” whether he can honestly not remember times when his own mother (who must have indulged at least once in the process he makes sound so distasteful by calling it “breeding”) was at her wits’ end for either some spare money or a little leisure—or both. I can assure him that bringing up young people to be clean, courteous, and just plain decent is more exhausting than it was a generation ago, because of the new pressures of the permissive, materialistic, mechanised society all around us. He is naive indeed to imagine that a possible motherhood endowment—inevitably small—would actively encourage women to bear more children; but it could well prevent further mental and physical breakdowns caused by unfair pressure from the general selfishness of society, to which “D.J.” and "Disgusted" would seem to be willing contributors. My thanks to Elsie Locke.— Yours, etc., BREEDER OF FOUR. June 19, 1971.

Sir, —What a mad, mad world! Some women take contraceptives; others take fertility pills and have multiple births. Scientists expert-

ment with artificial insemination and test-tube babies. Others scream about overpopulation. Doctors and nurses work round the clock to save multiple birth babies while thousands in Pakistan, Biafra, etc., die for lack of medical attention. Elsie Locke wants motherhood put on a mercenary basis. To encourage what? Baby farming? It is the duty of husbands and de factos to support their own children and if they cannot they should practise selfcontrol. More power to “Disgusted Bachelor.” Surely Elsie Locke does not envisage a New Zealand "totally devoid of children.” Perhaps she would like to see all children made wards of the State.—Yours, etc., NOT IN N.Z. June 19, 1971.