The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 11. OVERWORKED MOTHERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 78, 11 July 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 11. OVERWORKED MOTHERS.

Medical men are better able than anyone else to judge whether mothers are overworked or not. A deputation of members of Parliament, representing medical men, have petitioned Parliament urging that some definite help shall be extended to mothers, so' that they may not be the slaves they assuredly are. From every point of view, but especially from the national one, the health of women is of the highest possible importance. Many men there are, of jcourse, who hold the old-fashioned notion that "a woman's place is in the I home," but the man who holds that she should never stray out of it because she is bound to be a slave to pots and pans and a general, patient, domestic packhorse has not begun to understand real essentials. He is not looking further than to-morrow. There was never a truer saying that "man's work is from sun to sun—but woman's work is never done," and in New Zealand, where domestic service is more unpopular than any other branch of industry, the mothers are overloaded inordinately. There can be no doubt that the hopeless, never-ending task of the unassisted housewife not only assists a disinclination to motherhood, but assists in preventing women from being good mothers 1 in the physical sense. The real reasons! for the unpopularity of domestic service j are to be found in the fact that popu- j lation in many countries has a tendency j to flow townwards. The domestic arts! Sire neglected. Everything is factory-' made. Education is wider, and "within ! the reach of all." There is to-day greater ' supposed "equality," and (at least, as 1 far as New Zealand is concerned) the servant believes herself to be the "equal" of her employer, and, indeed, confers a favor on her by working for her. Domestic service in New Zealand is more highly paid than in any other country; ! it is also more grudgingly given, and it I is, generally speaking, inefficient. The demand is so great for servants and the ' class is so small that there is no am-: bition to excel in the business. Our schools teach the "frills" of housewifery, ' not so that girl children shall be capable ; of being paid domestic helps, but so that' they shall ,be superior "missuses" —if they can obtain servants. When anyone ' talks about the lack of domestic servants, he—or she—does not dare to suggest' that New Zealand girls should be servants. The idea is prevalent that the New Zealander is so superior to the rest of the people in the world that he — or she—should not undertSe menial employment. So it is suggested that girls shall be brought from Norway—and it is a very good idea, since it has been decided long ago that the New Zealand girl will not do housework, and that, if she does consent, she does it badly. The whole of our social system has the effect of making folk look upon themselves as if they were some kind of special gods or goddesses. Th? lwdy virtues of the pioneers are dying out, and when anyone is required- to "help the mothers," it is an insult to sucrrest i that the native-born should' be asked • to do it. And if you draft a thousand Norwegian peasant girls to New Zealand to help tired mothers, they will become "democratised" so soon that their utility will be quite temporary. In fact, they will soon become "tired mothers" themselves, and suggest drafting domestic labor from Germany, or Japan, or any other place than the Dominion in which they live. Although it is a splendid plan to attract all the strong, heaithy men and women who will come to New Zealand,' 1 it is absolutely wicked year after year to allow the New Zealand girl to continue to believe she is a superior creature, to whom a frying-pan is an abomination and a scrubbing-brush anathema.