Pity a Poor Pater.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7065, 10 February 1893, Page 2

Pity a Poor Pater.

“ Hia Son’s Slave " telle his grief to the editor of the Dunedin Star as follows : Sib, —Can you, or any of your readers, inform me what is the law in New Zealand regarding the relations of parents to their children. The fact is that I have a son—the same, 1 fear, as a great many others in New' Zealand—who is now close on his twentieth year, and who has accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge (at least he thinks so), and who is a little overanxious to drive some of it into bis parents’ beads. He knows more about washing, baking and cooking than his mother by long chalks, and can instruct the maidservant as to hr r proper duties in the household work. He is never tired of informing me how I should bring up the rest of the family, but be sternly obj'ets to being corrected himself, and when told to do anything by his mother or by tna ho politely tells u? to do it ourselves. He is never tired of picking faults •?iih the rest of tbs family, and wants to see them got. corporal punishment for anything they do amiss. In fact, ho manages to keep the house in a state of uproar from Monday morning till d&Lurday night. It is impossible to please him, do what you «iii. I know pretty well what half your readers will say—viz., that if be belonged to them they would give him a sound thrashing. I have tried that and found it a failure. I have reasoned with and begged of him all to the same purpose. I fear that some of our colonial youths are under the impression that they are born to be lords and masters of their parents. They get well educated, well clothed and housed, and they think their parents should bo thankful for the privi’ege of working all their lives for that purpose. They further consider that all the parents are entitled to is a considerable amount of abuse and disobedience. Finding it impossible to put up' with any longer, and seeing the bad example he is to the rest of the family, and as he has a first class trade and oaa earn a good living for himself, I have been compelled to order him to leave the house. He folds hia arms, and, with hia ueual politeness, says ho shan’t, aid that ho will stay as long as he likes, will do as he likes, and defies me to have him put out. What I want to knew is this : Docs the law of New Zealand compel a man to keep his sons till they sre twenty-one years of age when they are well able to get their own living, and who defy the parental authority ?