WHILE MOTHERS WORK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 157, 26 June 1942, Page 14

WHILE MOTHERS WORK

Interesting Experiment In Wellington

HOULD mothers go to work? That is the question that you hear on all sides. Can they go to work without neglecting their families? Is it uneconomical at the present time, when there is so great a demand for more and yet more teachers, typists, shop assistants, factory workers, that mothers, often skilled workers with ability and experience, should be tied to a home? These are the questions that a small group of men and women in Wellington have been putting to themselves and which they have set about to answer. Their answer is an experiment, not new to Europe and America,’ but one that is an experiment for New Zealand. It is an attempt not only to benefit the mothers who want greater freedom and time for work or for service, but also to provide a centre that will be of real educational value to the children that are brought there. And if the experiment succeeds. in Wellington it may, of course, be tried elsewhere in the Dominion, Threefold Purpose The Children’s Centre is to serve a threefold purpose — nursery — school, kindergarten and play centre. Primarily it will be a day nursery for any children up to the age of eight whose parents wish to leave them there all day. They may be left as early as seven-thirty in the morning and will be cared for until they are called for at night. "Eight is the age limit at. one end," The Listener was told in an interview, "but there will be no limit at the other. We hardly expect to have children under a year left in our care, but if they are weaned, we are prepared to accept full responsibility for them. At the other end, we would only have children of school age for the afternoon after they get back from school, but that time between school and a mother’s return from work is a time when little children should not be allowed just to knock about." : The second function of the Children’s Centre is to provide a kindergarten. This will be open from 9 a.m. to 12

noon. Children may stay on to a mid-day meal either regularly or casually, The kindergarten will be under the direction of a fully\trained and experienced woman, who will have a junior assistant. That covers the mornings, and brings us to the third function of the Children’s Centre, the provision of afternoon play. Mothers may leave the children for the afternoon on three afternoons a week, and give an afternoon periodically in helping with the care and amusement of the children. "What about equipment?" we asked. "In these days it is not easy to get toys, cots, tables, chairs, all the things in fact that are so essential to the successful running of a nursery school." Here, we were told, the Centre has been lucky. "We have rentéd a large house in Karori. It is an old house, containing about 10 or 11 rooms, some of them very large. Also, and this is very important, it has about an acre of ground. That is just what we need for children to run about and play as they wish. We will put up slides and swings and climbing frames, and they can have little gardens also if they wish. There are lawns for games. The husband of the matron-housekeeper will keep the garden in order. As for equipment, again we have been very lucky. We have been able to buy the full equipment from an institution that has been given up." How Children Will Benefit "There is one point we should, however, like to stress. We do not want to look on this purely as a useful institution into which parents can shove their children and leave them for the day. We believe: that a centre of this sort, if properly run, is of the very greatest value to the children. We are too apt to say that children ate best at home, and forget that the normal homeshould be full of children. A child by itself is usually lonely, and may be mentally neglected even if he has the best physical care. Children need company and free play, and plenty of the right sort of toys and play activity."