Practical Pediatrics

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 10

Practical Pediatrics

HAVE found the current discussions Your Child and Mine which come over 2YA oh Thursday mornings definitely effective in lightening the white woman’s burdens. The two speakers are Mrs. Beatrice Ashton and: Mrs. Zenocrate Mountjoy, both of whom I have previously enjoyed singly as radio talkers, but who reveal unexpected talents in collaboration. I don’t know at what point one draws the line between amateur and professional status in this business of bringing up‘children, but usually mothers have been regarded (and have tended to regard themselves) as amateurs, and gratefully accepted expert coaching by those with purely theoretical qualifications. Both Mrs. Ashton and Mrs. Mountjoy seem to have preserved their amateur status (they are mothers themselves as well as having considerable experience in the, bringing up of other people’s children) and the whole session is cosy, conversational, and delightfully woman-to-woman. Another welcome break from tradition is the fact (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) that all children mentioned in the progtamme are far from fictitious (being in most cases the discoursers’ own) and there is absolutely nothing to prevent listeners from seeing in the flesh the actual embodiments of the principles advocated,