Sir, - I suppose at my age I'll hardly be begetting any more children, but then again, I'm young enough to notice that many of the women in the child-minding debate are no chickens either, so I feel entitled to offer the following.
It seems clear that there is a mass movement among the women to get out of child minding. They dress it up in all sorts of waffle about choice, economic need, necessity to pay mortgages that are as high as they are only because there are so many double salaries paying for them, and even a desire to be in a position to do their best for their children. The truth is that it is an irrational ideology that has taken hold.
Of course, I know that there are many of them deeply committed to putting their children first, but they are being isolated by the sisterhood. It is only a matter of time before peer pressure puts every child into the creche from the cradle to the rave, a span of time that is getting shorter by the year.
Is it not time, therefore, brethren, for us to give up work and leave it to the women? Let us not forget that the amazing inventions, materials and other developments wrought by our ingenuity have not only brought work within reach of the women, but have also put child-minding within our own reach. In fact, would we not make a far better fist of it? Was it not a man who said something like: "Give me the child until the age of five, then do with him what you will"? I'm fairly sure that we'd have a lot less teenage sex and teenage drinking if we had charge of them at the critical time.
Let's face it. Our one essential role in this life is raising the next generation. For too long we have delegated an important part of it to the women. Fickle as they are, it is amazing that it is only now that their discontent is bursting out. So let them work, pay the mortgage, insure and wash the car, worry about tax, the Government and the economy. We'll do the important stuff. The only employment opportunity that needs to be denied to the women is the creche industry. It can only benefit the whole fabric of our society if we get back to large families, raised within the home by loving, competent and sensible fathers. - Yours, etc., Frank Farrell,
Lakelands Close, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.