Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

spend their days while they still live at home.In times of danger these day nurseries wouldbe converted into residential nurseries andwould be evacuated collectively. Mothers whorefuse to part from their small children couldbe offered the chance to go too as paid domesticstaff.Experience has shown that only a smallpercentage of all mothers would choose to doso. Under such conditions evacuation wouldlose its horrors for the young child and abnormalreactions to it would become extremelyrare. To maintain the remnants of the parentrelationship as far as possible and simultaneouslyto prepare the way for the return ofchildren to their homes after the war, thereshould be little or no restriction of visitingrules. In our houses parents come and go whenevertheir occupations leave them free to doso. Provision should be made for the possibilityof such visits, as it is made for all theother bodily and educational needs of the childinsofar as they are considered to be important.It will be still harder to devise proper meansof evacuation for small babies. If infants haveto be separated from their mothers in the firstweeks of life in the interest of war work, it isbest they go to creches near factories wheremothers can deposit and collect them. Thisagain does not solve the problem of sheltersleeping in times of danger. If babies go to87