HOW FULL IS YOUR HOME?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 487, 22 October 1948, Page 6

HOW FULL IS YOUR HOME?

HE decision of the Government to bring as many British children to New Zealand as the people of New Zealand are willing to receive has not so far aroused much comment. Most of us probably feel that it concerns others more than it concerns ourselves with our two sons sleeping in one room and our daughter on the back verandah. And some have not even the back verandah. But just as the poor have most to spare for the poor, mothers of families can sometimes. find a bed when the childless have no accommodation at all. In any case "The Listener" thought it worthwhile making some enquiries-finding out who had noticed the announcement and how many had begun to think about it seriously. For a week two sympathetic arid well-informed investigators brought the matter up as often as they met their friends, and this roughly is what they reported. It will be recalled of course that the basic-features of the Government's plan are (1), free passages for children between five and 17 years whose parents or guardians will release them for permanent residence in New Zealand; (2), legal guardianship by the Welfare Department for the first six months then by foster-parents (who are not guaranteed an opportunity to adopt); (3), payment of children’s allowance as for natural children, and the usual income-tax exemption. For convenience we shall call our investigators L1 and L2.

Report by L1 (1) I first asked a couple who now have two grown-up boys, "How would you feel about taking charge of a British War Orphan?" She: "I have thought about it a good deal and would think it quite practicable, although just at present we are in a flat and uprooted from our normal home. I always like to have a child in the home, and if it means giving a child a better chance in life than it would otherwise have, so much the better." He: "And we would like a girl! Personally I would feel more inclined to take over the care of a child from Europe. After all, we can, I think, safely assume that a British child will be fed and clothed and given a chance in a freedom-loving community, but a halfstarved European orphan has no chances. He needs a home and security and probably re-education. And there is no special reason for thinking that he will not ultimately grow up into as good a citizen as his New Zealand foster brothers. But I don’t like the idea of importing population just for the sake of more population, any more than I like the idea of sending parcels to relieve the monotony of English diet in preference to feeding starving people on the Continent. Let us help where help is most needed." * * * (2) "I’m afraid I would not think of taking over a British War Orphan," said another woman. "Housekeeping for my own family of three takes all my time and more and if I feel I can do more I always have friends who badly need holidays and who are very grateful if I can take charge of their children for a week or two. That gives | me all the scope I need for chils care.’ -- * * (3) I spoke next to a childless married couple. "It’s funny that you should ask us whether we would consider taking in a British War Orphan. We have

been discussing the question ourselves and certainly feel very drawn to the idea. Of course there are considerable practical difficulties. We live in a small flat-most unsuitable for a bounding primary school child. It would mean a tremendous amount of readjustment in our way of living-going out together at night for instance. Most couples come to curtail their activities gradually over the period of having a baby. It would be rather harder adjustment for us because it would be a big sudden jump. "But apart from that I cannot help having a lively and vivid picture of the difficulties of building up new personal relationships. It just seems preposterous for me to walk down to the wharf one day and meet a child-a living complicated human being with likes and dislikes and problems and inhibitions-and say: ‘Well, here I am, your foster mother from now on.’ How can one build a whole important and complicated human relationship .on the chance allotment of a Government office? It’s staggering to think about, but of course it can be done. Seeing all these difficulties in personal relationships may in the long run make this adoption or guardianship business easier for us than for the unperceptive soul with preconceived standards and patterns for child behaviour. But that is of course one big difficulty in the way of taking charge of a child of five and upward rather than a baby." « | e = (4) It seemed useless, but I then approached a mother of four. "I wouldn’t feel equal to committing myself to taking another child into the house unless I heard of a really necessitous case where the child needed a home very badly. I find four children fill our house to capacity, and with building restrictions and prices I can see no likelihood of our being able to enlarge it. Besides four children use up my time and energy. It’s not just washing, mending, cleaning, shopping, and making ends meet, but all the inevitable and endless settling of minor problems and quarrels. A mother has to give an enormous amount of time and energy into coping with all sorts of little problems-lost school books, presents to

be bought and given, letters written, tovs left on trams, minor grievances against school and other children, behaviour problems, eating problems. As the number of children multiplies the problems, one’s ability to cope with them increases, but I do feel a War Orphan would be too much ufhless there were some special and urgent need. I would feel’ differently’ if we had more space and if we had any domestic help that would relieve me of some of the routine work; but as things are I am a camel that baulks at the sight of another straw." * * cm (5) Another mother saw a different kind of difficulty. "I would be far more drawn to taking in a baby than a child from five up. The baby stage has the bigger appeal arid a baby is easier to fit into a family. During the war I offered to have a little Briton but I felt then that the need was urgent. As things are I would feel that the introduction of a school-age orphan might be too big an interference with our normal way of living." * * ok (6) Finally I bearded a father. But he refused to be serious. "Adopt a child? Certainly," he said, "provided she is: (a) a girl, (b) good-looking, (c) not too young, (d) not too old, (e) willing to help in the house and be a prop to my declining years, (f) doesn’t throw too big a spanner into the harmony that exists at the moment between my adolescent boys." Report by L2 (1) I began my investigations close to home by consulting my next-door neighbour, a woman with two grown-up children and herself an English war bride of the first war. She thought the scheme excellent and was herself considering taking one of the British childten. "I think there must be many people like us in comfortable circumstances and whose families are grown-up who would not consider adopting a young child, but who would be prepared to provide a home for a boy or girl of perhaps 12,

partly for our own satisfaction, partly because we would like to feel we are doing something for the Old+ Country." Her comments were echoed by several others in the same position whom I consulted, but they, while approving the scheme, were not able to take children themselves. * * (2) Women with young families were more dubious both about the scheme in general and the part they would be expected to play in it. A very intelligent young woman with two pre-school children said: "I would certainly not feel confident to cope with a child even as young as five. Most of these children will have been through the war and the blitz, and have lost one, or perhaps both parents. They are then expected to make a complete break with all that is dear and familiar to them and come here to live among strangers. They will require and deserve an almost superhuman amount of sympathy and understanding, more than the, ordinary woman with children of her own can be expected to give them." « * * (3) This was nonsense, according to another young woman, also the mother of two small children. "A considerable amount of research, done in England "seems to indicate that war experiences had surprisingly little’ permanent psychological effect on children. Children who had been born into the war took it for granted. And in the case of children who have suffered emotionally, what can be better for them than an entire break with the past, plus the excitement of the sea voyage and all the fuss that will be made of them on their arrival? And they are coming in New Zealand to people who are having them because they want them and who will do their best for them." * * * (4) "I think the point about the scheme being voluntary is an important one," said a young Englishwoman who has been in New Zealand a year. "When you first mentioned it to me I gouldn’t (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) help thinking of the evacuees we had billeted on us in the country. But in this case foster-parents can to some extent choose their child, and will at any rate have complete control of the child when they get it. But I hope people here won’t expect little Margaret O’Briens and little Roddy McDowells; they’ll probably be less photogenic than that, and perhaps nuts too tough for their own parents to crack." * + Ea (5) The general opinion was that the children could not fail to benefit physically and materially. They would have a "better chance" than they were likely to get at home. Young children because of their adaptability were the second. best type of New Zealand immigrant (assuming that the New Zealand baby is still the best) and the ‘teen-agers would in a few years be a very valuable economic asset. "But," ‘said one Englishwoman who has just returned from a trip to her,relatives in England, "I rather hate to think of these children leaving England when England needs them herself for her own economic recovery. And though I know the children will be well looked after here you mustn’t think they were starved in England. Special provision was always made for them under rationing, and last year when I was home they all looked well and rosy. And I think there’s a danger in bringing them out in groups that they will tend to be set apart, and perhaps even jlooked down upon as charity children." (I explained that the children were to travel in batches of 20, and that these small groups would be rapidly absorbed into the life of the community.) * % * (6) Most of the people I spoke to had many questions to ask about the actual working of the scheme, but not all were as full of misgivings as the woman with whom I had the following conversation. "Sounds a bit fishy to me, this business of ‘orphans and semi-orphans.’ Why can’t they just empty Dr. Barnardo’s Homes and have done with it? (She had read D.M.M.’s recent Listener article.) What sort of parents do you think they’d be who’d be willing to hand over their own children to people they’ve never seen? And what sort of children are such parents likely to have? And I don’t like that phrase about ‘legal custody’ of the foster-parents. How do you know these ‘semi-parents’ in Britain aren’t -nerely taking advantage of the scheme to get their children a free passage and are intending to come themselves later? In which case the foster-parents won’t have a legal leg to stand on. "And all this business of matching child to foster-parent in England sounds unbelievably cumbrous. By the time the foster-parent in New Zealand has got his photo of the child and decided he’d prefer something a little wider between the eyes the parents in England have probably rejected foster-parent because of his nut-cracker jaw, and by the time both parties are satisfied foster-parent has perhaps two more of his own and no further’ interest." "Then you don’t think we’ll get a very good response?" I asked. "T didn’t say that,’’ replied the cynic. "T should think you'll have lots of requests from farmers for husky lads from 15 to 17." ‘ * * * _ Among the many people I consulted the one who spoke with most authority

on the scheme was a lady who had a British war evacuee for five years. "Peter came from the Glasgow dockside. He was a weedy six-year-old when he came to us and a husky 11-year-old New Zealander when he went back. He was a dear little boy and we all loved him. After he went I sent letters and parcels but I have had only two letters from him. We were all heartbroken when he left us, and I hate to think of him in that third floor tenement, and not getting the right sort of food, or having enough space to play in. What I like about this scheme is its permanence. You will be able to finish the job of bringing up the child, and you will at any ‘rate have the satisfaction of knowing how your work turned out." Report from a Ghost FINALLY we interviewed a ghost. We rang a farmer and his wife who had taken one of the dispersed children during the bad days of the British blitz. We wanted them to tell our readers what the experience had meant to them both, but the telephone failed us. We are sure however that they would have repeated something like this if we had found them at home. It is as near a reproduction as we can give of the report they made to us eighteen months ago. ._We have changed the name. "It is a little too late to start again, but we can neyer be grateful enough for the arrival of George. We have no children

of our own, and when George came, pale-faced, nervous, and _ obviously under-nourished, we felt a little nervous too. "George was twelve. Until he left Scotland he had never been out of Glasgow, and our sheep as well as our cows were objects of terror to him. Now he owns the home-cows and supplies us with emilk and cream. He has a little bank account, and several trophies that he has won with his calves. If we don’t stop him he will work the tractor after tea on moonlight nights, and there is nothing on the farm in which he is not interested. "We have not adopted him, or tried to adopt him. His father is still living, and it touched us that letters came during the very worst days for Scotland and that they usually ended with an- exhortation not to neglect his homework. He never did. We sent him to secondary school, and his record there was admirable. Now he goes to W.E.A.) classes and studies farming scientifically. "We are not sure whether hé thinks of us as father and mother or as an older brother and sister. He calls us Bill and May. We are not quite sure how we regard him. We know that his coming has proved wholly good for us, and we think it has been satisfying to him. He still writes to his father, and looks forward to returning ‘to Scotland to visit him. But New Zealand is now his home, and has gajned in him a most worth-while citizen."