AUSTRALIAN TESTS FOR CLUMSINESS

May we congratulate Dr J. M. Court for his excellent and well argued treatise on the ‘use’ of children.’ Although it is hard to agree that by provision of the basic needs of love, usefulness and respect ‘all else will follow’, it is our belief that without these basics, dysfunction is likely to occur and that in current postindustrial developed countries each of these basic needs is under significant threat. There is no doubt that love in infancy is under threat. At its most serious this is evidenced by the increasing recognition of child abuse and neglect which is represented as a significant cause of infant deaths2 Even here there is evidence however, that love is not enough. Few parents, if any, have children with the predetermined desire to abuse or neglect them. It is their unpreparedness for parenting associated with isolation, prior experience of abuse and neglect themselves, and especially a society that increasingly undervalues the usefulness of parenting, that sets the environment necessary for failure of the burgeoning of love, and the tendency to child abuse. Although Dr Court rightly points out the decreased value attached to fatherhood engendered by the industrial revolution, it is the role of the mother that has been most severely denigrated in recent times. An unfortunate side effect of the overdue emancipation of women has been the increasing definition of a woman’s worth in terms of her education and employment. A cursory review of the wedding notices in each Sunday’s New York Times reveals this with most notices including a record of achievements such as: ‘Ms D, who is 25 years old.. ., graduated from Princeton University, as did her husband. Until recently she was a researcher in Newsweek. Her father is a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of D. B. & R. Her mother is an attorney.’ Where the bride or groom’s mother does not have a paying job, she is not mentioned in the notice at all! As long as we continue to equate personal value with monetary value of employment, the usefulness of parenting will continue to be seriously undervalued, and the full-time parent will continue to be cast as a second class citizen. How often do you, on asking occupation, hear the statement ‘I’m just a mother’? How reassuring to the continued well being of our children would it be to hear a male, on asked what he did, to announce ‘I am a parent, and I work during the day as a lawyer/doctor etc.’? The sense of use and respect which Dr Court argues is necessary for a healthy transition to adulthood is also absolutely essential to the parents of those children. If we are to avoid a situation where children must be sent to alternative care to allow parents to maintain their own sense of worth, we must, as paediatricians, actively advocate for the role of parent, recognizing the great difficulties entailed in successful achievement of this role. Congratulations, Dr Court! You have opened up an essential area for debate in paediatrics at a time when reassessment of the whole nature of parenting and childhood is essential.