Innocent as a Child

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 283, 24 November 1944, Page 9

Innocent as a Child

| WONDER whether amidst all this " talk of how many children stay up how late listening to how many serials, any of the experts have stopped to scrutinise the children’s evidence upon which these statistics are based, or considered how the primary school child loves to pose before its friends as a man or woman of the world unhampered by parental restriction. One may put out lights firmly at 7.30 every night of the year, only to ovérhear the victims of this harsh regime boasting to their friends that they always stay up to listen to First Light Fraser or some other favourite of the later hours. One little girl I know had never been to the pictures at night, but when faced with a questionnaire was ashamed of her innocence; she quickly decided that_as she was going to lie she might as well do it thoroughly, and the

result was that her astonished parents received a severe rebuke from the headmaster for taking their child to the pictures on four nights of the week. So before we become too excited about this serial habit, perhaps someone will try to

find out just how much children really do listen; but he will need to have his wits about him not to be hoodwinked by these small fry who turn on a pretty display of familiarity with a serial by snapping up fragments of conversation from older people and by drawing on their imagination; just as their parents can often pass as well-read people by scanning a few book reviews and mixing around occasionally with the right people.