MOTHERS' NEED HELP IN HOMES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 30, 29 October 1937, Page 6

MOTHERS' NEED HELP IN HOMES

Dearth of Domestics a Serious Problem

DR. GORDON'S C0NCERN

The present education system was iudirectly responsible for the serious domestic servant problem which faced so many mothers in New Zealand to-day, said Dr. Doris Gordon wh'.n asked by a Daily News reportor for her vievvs on -the domestic servant protlem. which has aroused consideraLle publiv rnterest. The present pcsition wa3, she said, a strong indictment of the system under which the young people of to-day were being reared. Young girls sought equality and perfect freedom, and the false values of modern civilisation confirmed them in their actions. They would not seek domestic service because it was considered to be a meniaj task, and in this viewpoint they were usually encouraged by their parents. Government Lead Oesired. How to get domestic assistance for young famiiies was q, question which every serious thinking peron interested in the racial welfare of New Zealand was asking, and it seemed £0 Dr. Gordon that Ixttle could be done untiL the Government had given a lead. It was a national matter and an urgent one, and it was disconcerting to witness the apatby of the present Government in the matter. One wondered, she said, why so much. time should be devoted to matters of lesser national' importance. Over six months had elapsed1 since the McMiilan report had been brought down, but no cluo had yet been given as to what the Government's intentions were, or whother any of the Commission's recommendations would he adopted. Dr. Gordon said she realised, however, that ihe problem was perhaps a more difficult one than any Government had yet had, to face, One of the main recommendations of ihe Commission of Inquiry into Abortion had been "the evolution of a Domestic Service Corps." This, Dr. Gordon said, jvas an excellent suggestion, but the eonversion of the idea jnto a practical scheme would he a difficult problem which would) require tho sympathetic co-operation of the Governmen|. Problem Oafly More Acute. Dr. Gordon stated that only . last week, when writing to obstetrical society officers, she had said that the matter of domestio assistance for expectant mothers and mothers of newlv born children was becoming daily more acute,- and that many women were sqffering both physically and mentally because of the lack of such assistance. Dr. Gordon agreed jvith a correspondent that the shortage of farm labour was not nearly as serious as the lack of- doiuestic labour, and she knew full well the difficulties farmers' wives experienced when, besides helping in the sheds, they also had the gole charge of several children. The problem would become more and more acute as the average age level in New Zealand increased as a result of the steadily falling hirth rate. Even now, ghe wa6 frequently embarrassed in her work by liaving to treat women who, being the only daugliters of their parents' marriage, were trying to rear two or three children and at the sanie time care for one or two ageing parents. From a professional point of view these women were attempting an impossible task, and while trying to do their duty were being physically and mentally ground between two mill stones. Health Camps Suggestcd. The establishment of health camps which would be so organised as to receive children when, say, their mothers had to go to hospital or when suffering from the strain of over work they were in need of a real holiday, was a suggestion that had been advanced on several occasions by Dr. Gordon as a partial solution of the problem. Many a farmer's wife, she said, would battlo on, unaided, if she only had some assurance that her children would be well cared for during the time she was u»able to work, or that it would be possible for her to take a fortnight's holiday occasiopally, free from maternal responslbilities. It would be no more expensive for parents to keep children in a well managed open air home such as this than it would be to pay 30/- a week for an unknown and oiten unobtainable housekeeper, in addition to the household hills. Although institutional control of cliildren, with its tendency to undermine home life as New Zealanders knew it, would be, in Dr. Gordon's opinion, a liighly regrettable step, it would appear to be a necessity, and as far as could be • seen, was the only scheme which promised to solve, in some measure, the problem which the majority of mothers faced to-day.