Good Father Plays Full Part In Care Of Family

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 71, 30 March 1949, Page 3

Good Father Plays Full Part In Care Of Family

(By the Department of Health)

What is a good father? Briefly, he is a man who plays his. full part in the physical, mental and moral development of his family. He really studies the proper way to bring up his children. This is something that can’t be acquired by reliance upon instinct.

A good father learns what provision there is to protect his children from disease; he learns something about child hygiene; and he realises that unless his wife is to exhaust herself by working 24 hours a day for seven days a week, he’ll have to chip in and lend a helping hand.

He learns, too, *&rhat facilities there are locally for expectant and nursing mothers. He takes full advantage of all those services available to help his child from birth right through to the time he or she leaves school.

As a sensible man he realises that it is better by this means to prevent the development of disabilities and ailments in his children than to wait until the foundation of their well-being is destroyed by preventable diseases and their general efficiency is undermined. The good-father plays an essential part in safeguarding the physical and mental well-being of his children from the time they enter his heme.

Through toddler stage and schooldays, the partnership of father and mother must be maintained for the good of the child. Nor does the importance of fathereraft end when the children leave school, for during adolescence the children are in particular need of the understanding guidance of their parents. Bringing up a child is not an easy job. But it can be triumphantly successful through the co-operation of parents who work in partnership for the good of their child.