DUTY OF CHILDREN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 4410, 27 October 1934, Page 1

DUTY OF CHILDREN.

“HAND WAGES TO PARENTS-” “No boy or girl under the age of 21 years should control his or her wages; they should be handed ovei to the parents, who should remain in the dignified position of master and mistress of the home,” said Dr. Duhig, Roman Catholic Archbishop of [Brisbane, when addresssing more than 200 confirmation candidates at St. Stephen’s Cathedral recently. The archbishop referred to what he termed “ungrateful, if not unnatural, treatment of parents by many sons and daughters,” who, while yet in their teens, instead of handing their wages to their parents, managed their own affairs. These children lived as lodgers in the home, giving their parents what they considered “fair and reasonable board.”

This state of affairs, said Dr. Duhig, had become noticeable only in the last decade, and it was a most undesirable attitude toward parents. Many children never thought of repaying their parents if repayment were possible for the attention lavished on them during their formative years, and the independence assumed by them as soon as they started work was unjustified. “Mothers are humiliated by receiving as beggars what they should receive as a matter of right,” the archbishop added. “We regard the ‘dole’ as an indignity, but many children have no remorse about putting their parents ’ on , the ‘dole.’ ” He had brought under the notice of Ministers of the Crown the anomaly of parents of children receiving good wages being forced into the position of having to accept the old-age pension.