BRINGING UP BABY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 520, 10 June 1949, Page 5

BRINGING UP BABY

Sir,-Mrs. Macaskill’s talk and Mrs. Toplis’ comment in The Listener form the familiar pattern of a presentation of new ideas in child-raising and the

horrified response of a parent intensively trained in. another tradition. Everyone seems to have such definite ideas on that subject. I myself am grateful to the modern approach, which had persuaded me before my first baby arrived six months ago to be as much observer as trainer, and, quite aside from the fun it is turning out to be, I am becoming convinced that a baby comes provided with instincts which make a good deal of training unnecessary and even harmful. For instance, my baby is at the stage of wanting to give everything the taste test, and since his enthusiasm extends to what we more conservative adults consider proper food, like carrots, I am satisfied to let him gnaw away on whatever takes his fancy, including toys, blankets, even the fire tongs, but excluding the things that might really do him some harm. So far, there are no signs of the feeding problem we have been hearing so much about ever since parents thought it was their duty to keep children’ from putting things in their mouths and feed them a diet on schedule. I am cure that

if Mrs. Toplis would some day watch her child completely absorbed in making mud-pies she would realise that to the child, mud-pies are as serious as meat-pies to the mother. As to the proper costume for serious play, perhaps a little girl who is told to go play in a pretty starched and ironed dress feels much as her mother would if someone gave her a satin evening frock to get tea in, with the admonition that it cost a lot and she would be ungrateful to get it dirty!

ELIZABETH

PALTON

(Christchurch).