MOTHER’S DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21415, 8 May 1941, Page 9

MOTHER’S DAY

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Mother’s Day approaches, and with it we find your columns being used to advocate more mothers of large families. When we think of that wonderful word “ mother ” we would expect to find every young woman eagerly looking forward to the day when she would be a mother of a good-sized family, but is she? When our little girl starts school she has a natural love for babies, as is evident by the way she cares for her dolls and the pride she takes in her baby sister or brother. When she leaves school, what a difference! She has been taught everything but motherhood. In lact, the subject has never been mentioned except in a j whisper. Her head has been crammed full of figures, dates, history, languages, etc., etc., leaving her a bundle of nerves and headaches, and she often seeks relief in a free-and-easy life with cigarettes, cocktails and dances. She has reached the time when she knows a thing or two, and many of them openly declare they don’t want a family when they marry. They know a mother gets very little help from the State, which builds houses minus a nursery and does not give preference to. those with the larger family. They know that landlords do not want tenants who have children. Bus drivers do not like taking prams on the bus. Trains do not have a carriage for mothers and children where a nurse awaits to lend a hand and make travelling a comfort for them. So mothers travel in carriages where there will be plenty of black looks should their little children happen to cry. Fathers of large families do not get preference in jobs, nor extra wages. Schools do not provide free books, etc., etc. The modern girl knows all this. She knows such services would cost money but she knows also that millions of pounds are being spent and can always be found to provide instruments of war which blast to smithereens the children of mothers who have been brave enough to have children in spite of all this.—l am, etc., FATHER THYME. Hamilton, May 7.