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56
It was decided that the admissions should be on the same basis as
during the war, namely, that in selecting children for admission, preference
should be given to the child of the mother engaged whole-time on work
classed as of national importance, and to the child whose acceptance
would free his mother for work. It was only to be if there were vacancies
not taken up by children in these categories that children in other groups
could be admitted. That meant that children of mothers working only
part-time were not accepted, and that only one child from a family could
be admitted. Although then the nurseries were being maintained by a
welfare authority, the basis of selection of children for admission was
that adopted when the nurseries were established with the prime object
of freeing mothers to engage in war work.
A welfare authority as such would encourage part-time rather than
whole-time employment of the mothers, to give them that much more
time to look after their children at home. It would tend to accept
more than one child from a family so that the mother could be freed to
look after the others, or the better to manage her home. It would certainly
accept the child of the mother who, because of illness, could not
go to work and who, for that reason, too, should be freed from the need
of looking after her child, while again accepting the child or children of
the widower who had been left with small children to look after. Admittedly
these cases can be accepted, but only if vacancies had not been taken
up by children of mothers electing to go to work. At times the waiting
list, first of one and then of another nursery, has shortened, and it has
seemed possible it would disappear, but in every case the list has grown
again, so that now every nursery has its list. In general, the application
list is very much shorter than during the war, that at Headstone Drive
being the only one of comparable size.
While the Ministry urge that the places at the nurseries should be
given to the children of mothers engaged in work of national importance,
in practice little consideration can be given to the particular work on
which the mothers are engaged, though every effort is made to see that
they do undertake whole-time employment. Certainly no question is
raised as to the need to themselves for those mothers to go out to work.
It is generally accepted that it is desirable that a mother should look
after her child at least until the child attains the age of two years. The
question was debated as to whether no infants under twelve months of
age should be admitted, but it was decided to continue to accept those of
all ages. The difficulty of course is that however desirable it might be,
on general grounds, that the mother should look after her child, the fact
remains that, in present circumstances, many mothers do not receive
sufficient to enable them to maintain a home for themselves and a family.
Whatever may be the solution when it is found, until that time there is
the need for some such provision to enable the mothers to go out to earn,
and nurseries are not cheap establishments to run. It would seem that it
ought to be possible to enable the mother to receive the 25/- she is
subsidised by her child being at the nursery (the cost per week of 30/-,
minus her 5/- contribution), which would help her to arrange other
than by the need for her small child to be admitted to the artificial
atmosphere of the nursery. Whatever may be the case of the need of
those over two years of age, there seems to be general agreement both as