CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 203, 28 August 1942, Page 2

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

MOTHERHOOD

(To The Editor)

In a speech made by Mrs. Begg, Dominion president of the Plunket Society she points out the "basic fact" ( ? ) that the new order will depend on the new generations, ana pleads for a better deal for motnerhood as a contribution to the postwar new order. Does not the future generation grow out of the present generation? Are not the present day mothers of equal importance to the future mothers? The mothers of soldiers' children are not receiving sufficient money to live on. We have the stark spectre of venereal disease stalking many of our future mothers. We have the problem of the unmarried mother, surely one which deserves more attention than it has hitherto been given, and of soldiers who desert their families, either because war experience has made them unstable or because of changes which have occurred during their absence. We have our pseudo Socialist Government comprised of tired and aged men, who it would seem are not capable of dealing with the problems of the times, but who have dug themselves in for tne duration and will not make way for vounger and stronger men. What an unholy mess it all is! Do these people who talk so glibly of new orders think for a single moment that as soon as this war—or these wars—are ended, that everything will settle down and a new order begin to function to suit everybody? Of course not. These people know that we are facing possible chaos. It is not wards we want, but action. Not in the future, but now. VERA BENNETT.