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The Health of Barking
We pointed out to her that Day Nurseries are intended primarily to accommodate
the children of women who go out to work, and I think that a woman
who is not going to work has very little chance of getting her child into a Day
Nursery. What was more, we pointed out that although we had three Day Nurseries
with accommodation for 168 children there were no less than 407 on the waiting
list. This was towards the end of 1948.
It is pertinent to point out, however, that plans are in hand for the conversion
of the former Castle School into a Day Nursery, and for the erection of a further
prefabricated Nursery which will be situated in the western part of the town.
The accommodation to be provided in these two projected Nurseries will do much
to reduce the present constant high waiting list, but, contrariwise, it is to be
recorded that the National Trust is very anxious to reopen the Eastbury House as a
museum. As a war-time measure Eastbury House was leased by the National
Trust for the purpose of using it as a Day Nursery, and at the present time 80 of
the present total 168 nursery places are provided in these premises.
Now it seems to me that although Mary may have been unreasonable in the
way in which she put her case, that doesn't do away with the fact that she has a
case, and that these nurseries in the future should cater not only for people who
want their children looked after as a long-term policy but for parents who properly
want their children looked after one day now and one day at some other time.
The older I get the more I am convinced that whatever handicap it may be to
a woman to carry a child and to bear a child, and I wouldn't for the world minimise
this, it is even a much harder job looking after the child after it is born, particularly
now that children are dependent upon parents at least until they are 15 or 16 years
of age
I do feel that if we are to get young women with young families to lead a normal
life, they must have time off from their job and that they are even more entitled
to take this time off than most of us who are engaged on other work.
Birth Control.
John and Mary never did talk to me about personal things, and I must say
this is a pity and it is a pity also that because they have not mentioned the matter
to me, I have never had the courage to mention it to them. There can be no doubt
that until the problems of birth control are discussed openly and in a forthright
way, we shall never get an enlightened public opinion on this matter, and just as
John had gone into a flap when he was reading about infection of the eyes of young
children because he had been reading a book without realising that it was twenty
years old, so the reading of other books also leads to the most outlandish notions, so
much so that I think that the writers of these books do not realise how grossly they
are misinterpreted.
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