HELP THE MOTHERS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 23, 22 October 1919, Page 8

HELP THE MOTHERS

HOW IT CAN BE DONE. Sir—l wonder how many mothers had tlie cood fortune to read your leader in the paper 011 Saturday, headed "An Apueal to Women"? Not many, I fear, for we livo in an age when newspaper reading is a luxury to the overworked mothers. However, I was fortunate enough to got the time to read' it, and I write to you now to ask you to be good enough to publish this my first letter to the newspapers.

I am a mother of four sons, the eldest ten years old, the youngest ten -months, and I have, like thousands of other mothers, been unable to get help of any description for months. Recently I be : came ill. and if it had not been for the very gracious help I received from neighbours. while 1 was in, bod, I do not know what would have happened to mo or mv household, for my husband, 1 although he did all that was possible, has also to earn the daily bread. When I was able to leave my room I was faced with the problem -of how to manage everything myself again, I was advised to apply for help to tlio "Mothers* Helpers League." I shrank from the ordeal of having a strange female coming into the home for a few hours daily, and could not see how this help was to lessen mv work. I found out, however, within an hour of the arrival of the help! what a wonderful thing the Mothers' Helpers League is.

Now this is why I write to you. If all mothers of young families could benefit as I have done, the evidence given by Sir Rider Haggard to the effect that within the next two centuries the Westi em races would cease to hold the dominion of the world because of the rapid decline in the birth-rate would not bo regarded with great alarm in New /enland. It is indeed, alas, only too true that mothers dread the thought of largo families because they cannot get the right help in the home. \ The best solution of this problem ia to give the'mothers the help they so sorely neen'. This can be done, if the State will only help us, and the Mothers' Helpers League has shown the way. I do want other tired mothers to rwiHse what a great thing this movement is. It is not charity! The Mothers' Helpers League will send to a mother if she is ill, or in need of help, a gentlewoman (in every spiisp of Ihe word I found) to mind Ihe children, do the mending, and heln in any way, and the mother has the chance of going out or resting, knowing that nil's well with the bairns.

Your article in Saturday's paper, Mr, Editor, as you say, "The. fault is not with the .shoul<i-be mothers, so much as with the conditions of life of the homemaker." We cannot get the help in the house which we should have, becnuso domestic service is looked down upon, and, therefore, does not attract girls. I think this service is quite as noble as typewriting or similar popular occupations. and I think it is woman's special sphere of sen-ice- The Mothers' Helpers League is trying to put domestic service on a higher footing than it has been, and this. T feel sure, is one of the stens towards the right conditions for mothers. of which you spwik.—T am, etc..

„ T , NAN SMYTHE, Wellumton, October 20.