PRISON WITHOUT BARS?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 405, 28 March 1947, Page 24

PRISON WITHOUT BARS?

Home-Life for the Married Woman

— a An NBS talk in the series "Women’s Affairs,"

by

CAROLINE

WEBB

and the problems that face women in their job of running a home to-day. To the child the home means chiefly a refuge where he is assured of love and attention-a place full of dear, familiar objects-the source of comfort and nourishment. To the wage-earner the home is mainly a place for relaxation after the day’s work, at week-ends and holidays. For the married woman-weli what is it? Some people tell us that the home is a machine for living in with the woman as the operator. Others that it is a work of art which the woman creates. Others still protest that it is a prison in which the woman is sentenced to hard labour. And I suppose there is some truth in all these views. I think we would all agree that the mechanics of housekeeping-the washing, cleaning and cooking should not absorb all our energies. Machines should be used as much as possible so that the housewife has time for the more creative part of her work-anticipating the needs of the various members of her family, harmonOF talk is about the home

ising their interests and smoothing out their troubles. The danger of the home-becoming a prison is a fairly recent development. It Was not. possible when the home was the industrial unit as well as the family dwelling. Though women may have had to work hard in those days they were working with the other members of their household, just as they still do on farms. It is in the towns where the men’s work has moved away from the home, either to the factory or the office, that women can now be so isolated and lonely. Spending 10 hours a day with only small children and babies as companions can become very tedious, especially. when they can’t be left at night either. The trouble should not be difficult to remedy where there are no young children. Don’t you think a woman with grown-up children or without children should have opportunities

to do at least a part-time job? The idea that she should stay at home to wait on the other adult members of the family is surely antiquated. Housekeeping can well become a co-operative enterprise now that a 40-hour week leaves a sufficient margin of leisure to wage-earners. So I hope the ban that existed before the war in various occupations and professions against the employment of married women will never return. And provided we are able to maintain the aim of full employment, is there any reason why it should? Help in the Home As far as the woman with children is concerned, her need to escape from her home and her family at least once a week should be recognised and provided for. This raises the very difficult problem of help in the home. Has any problem been more discussed among women than this one I wonder? I have been amused to find in the diaries of some of the earliest women colonists in New Zealand just the same endless talk of the difficulties of getting help as one hears to-day. And I suppose it has gone on all the hundred- years

of our history. Surely it is time we feund a solution. We might give it a try anyway. First of all, I think we have to recognise that in a one-class society such as we are developing, people won’t take work which makes them feel inferior to those who employ them. Personal service of any sort, such as washing other people’s dishes, waiting on them at table or making their beds is felt to place the worker on a lower social level than those he works for. Secondly, I think we have to realise that the day of live-in domestic workers is over. There was a time when shop-assistants were expected as a matter of course to live on the premises and accept their

keep as part of their wages. They won their independence from their employer years ago as the domestic worker is winning it now. In the past, of course, the life of the live-in servant was by no means always unpleasant. She was generally one of a large staff of servants, often both male and female, who had a life and interests of their own in the servants’ quarters. A girl who started as a between-maid could aspire ultimately to rise to be a parlour-maid or head housemaid with considerable authority over the junior members of the staff. But ‘to-day the domestic worker in a private home has little advancement to look forward to, as she is generally the one and only. Also she is in the difficult position of living among the family and, to a certain extent, subordinating her interests to theirs without ever being quite one of them. For the employer, too, there are difficulties. It is hard endugh for two people, ‘Uunless they are friends in the first place, to live and work together. When their interest are as divergent as those of mistress and maid often are, continual, close association in the small modern home can be very trying. Therefore I think we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that domestic work will be on a daily or hourly basis and must be done under conditions that reduce the dependence of the employed person to a minimum. One way of achieving this would be through the organisation of cleaning companies. Have you ever heard of these? I saw an. account the other day of one operating in America. The idea is that a number of workers-three or four perhaps-all come to your house at the same time bringing their own cleaning equipment. Then between them (once a week or’so) they "do" the house, of as much of it as they are employed to do. The scrubbing, polishing,. sweeping, dusting and cleaning of windows and silver, in fact everything but the more personal work, could be done in a few hours, If there were companies of this’ sort to do the heavy cleaning the normal household. could then manage without other domestic help. In fact, I think it should be the aim of the average household to be selfreliant except for this routine cleaning. I should say the organisation of cleaning companies might well be a commercial venture, though the State or local bodies should also have their own companies to clean their institutions and offices; and most important, to provide a free weekly visit to all pregnant women. Compulsory Domestic Service? The situation would then be that home helps would only be needed in families where there was sickness, where there were young babies or where people were too old to look after themselves. The Government Domestic Aid scheme is planned to meet just these emergencies. The difficulty seems to be in getting sufficient women to take up this’ work. If the shortage of workers continues the only solution I can see would be to make all girls serve a period of domestic service equivalent to a period of military or national service called for from boys. I would not object to this for my children. Would you? In this case there would be no payment to girls by the people they worked for and therefore no feeling of dependence on them, The girls could be boarded in State hostels and be sent to houses where there was sickness, where people were incapacitated by old age and, last but not least, where there were young

babies. I think that every mother with a baby under a year old should be entitled to a helper if she wished to have one. We hear so much nowadays about the virtues of breast feeding babies; but the modern mother simply does not have the peace and rest necessary for this. No cow could be expected to function that did as much running about as a housewife! And I don’t think it does a baby much good to be fed by an overworked, tired mother. Some women find it no effort to feed a baby; but to most it is an exhausting business, and when this is added to all their other jobs, it leaves them perpetually tired. Some of us remember the first year of our babies’ lives chiefly by the feeling of being always tired and never shaving enough sleep. Karitane nurses, of course, have been a great stand-by to mothers in New Zealand, But they are in such short supply now that it is not possible for a mother to have the ene all the time she is feeding a baby, even if she could afford it. And don’t you agree that if a baby is healthy the mother should have the joy and the responsibility of looking after it? To pass the baby to a nurse and perhaps put it on to bottles because there is no one but the mother to look after the other children ahd do the cleaning, cook- | ing, shopping and washing seems to be a tragedy. The ideal surely is for the mother to look after her children and for someone else to help with the house-| work. As for families with children over a year old but under school age, the permanent play centre seems the solution to the mothers’ problems. I wish a children’s centre, such as there is at Karori, were attached to every town primary school. Then mothers could leave their pre-school children there at least one day a week. Once a week they could go shopping without bundling babies and push-chairs on and off trams, and return home without having tired children, as well as heavy parcels, to cope with. They could go to a picture, or play a game of tennis, and have a meal that they did not have to prepare and wash up themselves. The Karori Children’s Centre is divided into a nursery staffed by Karitanes and a Kindergarten staffed by trained teachers, with a matron in charge of both sections. If this very good system were generally adopted it would mean that a regular morning Kindergarten would be run in conjunction with primary schools. The Kindergarten hours at Karori are from 9-12; but the children can have dinner there followed by a sleep and stay on to play until five o'clock. wink, For many people all over Wellington this Children’s Centre has solved the difficult problem of what to do with pre-school children when mothers are ill. Fathers, or elder children, take the little ones at nine o’clock and collect them at five. Still another advantage of the centre is that children who are in the "primers at school can have a hot midday dinner there and come back to play after school if their mothers are not going to be at home. Of course these things have,.to be paid for, but they are such a tremendous help to parents that they pay willingly. All these :things that I have mentioned, cleaning companies, home helps and children’s centres would affect not. only the well-being of the home and the woman’s attitude to it; but also the attitude of, parents towards the size % their family. 3