FATHERHOOD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8457, 17 June 1913, Page 10

FATHERHOOD

ITS RESPONSIBILITIES In the course of a lecture on “The Responsibility of Fatherhood,” Lady Stout stressed the fact that though the cry was always to train the girl so that she would .realise the responsibilities of motherhood, no one talked of training tho boys to be good fathers, good husbands, and responsible guides for their children. The girl was to have her physical health carefully guarded from infancy, was to be trained in all the essentials of wifehood and motherhood, and her ideals were to he high and her responsibilities great. But what was to happen when the trained girl married a man who had been trained to believe it was his right and privilege to do what he liked; to lead any life Tie pleased; to indulge in drink, gambling, and immorality, and consider it manly to follow his free will in every action of his life, both before and after marriage. There was no one to condemn his careless disregard of his health, or to point out that alcohol and nicotine poisoning were much more detrimental to his child than any high heels or pneumonia blouses that his wife might wear. The spiritual aspect —the influence of tho father and his treatment of the matter —had a far deeper and more reaching effect upon the child than food, clothing, or material comforts. All the schemes for the endowment of motherhood and the training for motherhood were as nought compared with the endowment of a healthy fatherhood. The only endowment of a mother, and, under divine laiy, the supreme' endowment of her womanhood, was a fatherhood worthy of patronage. If the father failed the -whole process of race development failed. AVhen man realised his responsibilities, and ceased to look upon women as inferiors, the new life of the race would have begun. The new and tme humanity would be born of parents fully awake to the responsibilities of parenthood—the divine offices of fatherhood and motherhood.