Parental care

“ In fact, the importance and necessity of care and watchfulness in the rearing of children on the part of parents, has been recognized from time immemorial. Among all nations, the parent is expected to instruct, restrain and correct his boy, to the end that he may grow up to be a useful and honest man. And parental control is today, as it always has been, the most important factor in the proper bringing up of children. ”

“ The prospective and nursing mother should receive especial consideration. It should be known and recognized that her requirements for wholesome food, and above all wholesome surroundings, are necessary for the normal development of her child and for her own physical safety. How can she,—perhaps already a mother of several children, have the needed rest and time to read or walk in the fresh air, unless the family co-operate with her? It is so easy for the husband to direct the children at these times and at all times, as to the care the mother is deserving. ”

“ The Report of the House Committee on Ways and Means stated:
'Particularly in families with small children, it is necessary for the mother or another adult to be in the home full time to provide proper care and supervision. ”

“ These babies die, not by an act of Providence, but from lack of care—not the difficult, complicated care needed by sick babies but just the everyday care which any mother may give—the care that keeps well babies well. ”

“ With a few exceptions, therefore, mothers require during the early years of a baby's life skilled advice as to his upbringing—advice for which neither instinct nor haphazard counsel is a safe substitute. It is an excellent plan, and one which is becoming more and more popular, to have a physician supervise the care of the baby through the period of most active growth. ”

“ Principle 6 The child, for the full and harmonious development of his/her personality, needs love and understanding. He/she shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his/her parents, and, in any case, in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security; a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his/her mother. Society and the public authorities shall have the duty to extend particular care to children without a family and to those without adequate means of support. ”

“ An ambition to promote the welfare of children reconciles parents to part with them at that tender age when they ought to command more constant care than they generally need at a more advanced time of life ”

“ S. Josephine Baker, consulting director, Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor, an authority on babies, whose articles regularly appear in the Ladies’ Home Journal and who is constantly asked for advice by women throughout the country. Healthy Mothers deals almost entirely with the mother’s care of herself, and tells explicitly how she may best meet her responsibility to her baby, how she may have better health for herself, and the finer mental attitude that comes with physical well-being. ”

“ If it can be shown that our babies would be better off if part of their time was passed in other care than their mothers’, then such other care would be right; and it would be the duty of motherhood to provide it. ”

“ Father and Son Properly enough, the responsibility for health and development of young children rests upon the mother, and in most families this care remains with her till the children are able to look out for themselves. ”

“ We support a family preservation program to reduce child and spousal abuse by providing preventive services and foster care to families in crisis. We favor ensuring quality and affordable child care opportunities for working parents, and a fair and healthy start for every child, including essential pre-natal and well baby care. ”

“ The children are under the care of the Hospital, until 21 years of age; better treatment the children cannot have; though I have sometimes thought it rather hard, that the rules of the Charily forbid, that any mother should have a personal knowledge of her child ”

“ I am quite of opinion that if mothers were sound in constitution, and bestowed the requisite care upon the maintenance of their health, we should hear little of diseases of children. In children, as well as in parent, the rules of health must be carried out,” and their neglect cannot fail to bring with it a heavy retribution. ”

“ We see elaborate care bestowed on a family of children, everything studied that can tend to their personal comfort,—pure air, pure water, regular ablution, a dietary prescribed by art, and every precaution adopted that medical judgment and maternal love can dictate, for the well-being of the parents' hope ”

“ The care and management, and consequently the health and future well-doing of the child, principally devolve upon the mother, "for it is the mother after all that has most to do with the making or marring of the man." ”

“ Because the person who enjoys a healthy, happy childhood is most likely to become a healthy, well-adjusted adult, we do well to recall our obligation—as parents and as a Nation—to protect, nurture, and provide for our children.
Most parents are keenly aware of their responsibilities of providing food, shelter, clothing, and basic health care—the fundamental material support that is essential to every youngster's physical and emotional well-being. Yet parents also have a responsibility to nurture the spiritual and intellectual development of the child whom God has entrusted to their care. ”

“ The National Family Caregiver Support Program, managed by the Administration on Aging of the Department of Health and Human Services, gives family caregivers counseling, information, respite care, and supplemental services. ”

“ They are not sick, and they [218] don't stay babies all the time they need this person. What is it that our children need? Of course, they do need direct, personal care; and, when they are babies, they need real "nursing,"—just somebody to—to—well, they have to be fed,—and that only needs a knowledge of infant physiology and nutrition; to keep the bottles clean, of course, and be very accurate, and follow directions. They don't need to know so much after all: the doctor tells what to give it to eat and what not to. And the mother understands the child's needs! ”

“ So long as responsibility for the care and support of children continues to be vested in the parents, so long, for the sake of the child, will it be the duty of society to insist that parents shall not neglect this responsibility. ”

“ Infant and toddler care institutions and early childhood care and education institutions shall provide the parents or other guardians of minors with guidance services on family education such as science-based parenting guidance. ”

“ Can we not find some means to secure to infants a mother’s care and love for at least the first year of their lives, by furnishing these mothers with some honest means of support, and thus saving both mothers and children? ”

“ The child welfare boards afford advisory assistance, admonish the parents, and supervise the child's regime under preventative procedures. Taking a child into custody for social care is the last resort. ”

“ When the children are sick, there is nothing so good as the advice of the trusted family [Pg 246] physician and the unwearied care of the mother. Yet when the physician has done his work and gone his way, and when the mother is worn out by days of anxiety and nights of watching, we deem it a great blessing, if there is a kind neighbor who will come in, not to assume the work, but to help it on a little. ”

“ In early infancy, as in advanced old age, the hold on life is slight, normal and abnormal are soon interchanged, and there is needed not only more knowledge on the part of mothers and nurses, and even of physicians, of the hygienic side of medicine as applied to the physiological life of the mother and her infant, but also personal care and assistance to enable the mother to apply the useful information and advice given by the public health nurse. ”

“ The subject opened and led to a large exhortatory and cautionary communication; also setting forth the great obligations of parents and guardians to their tender offspring and children under their charge; and the incalculable loss that children [Pg 188] sustain where parents and guardians neglect their duty in timely care for their right instruction. It was a solemn time, and I hope profitable to some, by stirring them up to more diligence.
The rest of this week, except attending our monthly meeting on fifth day, was spent in close attention to my temporal concerns. ”

“ But they are not the mothers of your children, and it is not in nature that they should have the care and anxiety adequate to the necessity of the case. Out of the immediate care and personal superintendence of one or the other of the parents, or of some trusty relation, no young child ought to be suffered to be, if there be, at whatever sacrifice of ease or of property, any possibility of preventing it: because, to insure, if possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the sound body, and the sane mind of your children, is the very first of all your duties. ”

“ Building strong families is central to that mission. That's why we must do all that we can to help parents do all they can to live up to one of the greatest responsibilities anyone can have, to care for a child. ”

“ What Is the Modern Ideal in Child-care?—What is the ideal of those most advanced in knowledge of childhood's needs and most sincere in devotion to the welfare and happiness of the young? It is certainly not one which ignores or minimizes the influence of the private home or one which includes the belief that one parent, however wise or good, can do as much for a child as two parents working in harmony over a long period of years can accomplish. ”

“ The State lays down the principles in accordance with which the foster-parents must bring up the child, and sees that the foster-parents have access to expert advice concerning every department of the hygiene of childhood. The State insists that whenever necessary the foster-children shall have medical aid, that the children shall attend the elementary school, &c. If the foster-parents apply these principles properly in their care of the foster-children, they are likely to take care that their own children are treated at least equally well. ”

“ On Parents' Day, we pay tribute to the millions of parents whose care has nurtured us, whose vigilance has protected us, and whose selfless devotion has blessed our lives.
The challenges of parenthood have changed as our society has changed. In many American families, both parents work outside the home and struggle to balance the competing demands of job, home, and family. In others, a single parent bears these responsibilities. ”

“ But above and beyond this element has been the quiet and persistent growth of the work among board-of-health officers, medical societies, club women, church organizations, physicians, nurses—in fact, among all bodies of men and women especially interested in child welfare. ”

“ The most advantageous years for parenthood, for the welfare of the children, are between twenty or twenty-five and forty years of age for the mother and past twenty-five years for the father. An interval of two or three years should elapse between the children, to give ample opportunity for the mother to gain reserve vitality and to care adequately for each child. ”

“ For many days and ofttimes weeks the mother is unfit—physically unable—properly to care for her child, and so104 whether it be the trained assistant in constant attendance or the visiting nurse in her daily calls, or the kind, willing, but unskilled neighbor—each helper must acquaint herself, in varying degrees, with the physical, nervous, and mental needs of the child, as well as take into account and anticipate the numerous habits and wants of the new born babe, such as urination, bowel movement, pulse, respiration, temperature, etc. ”

“ GENERAL TREATMENT OF INFANTS. Children are given to parents only for a lifetime; it may be long, or it may be very short; but to array them in fine linens, with bare neck and arms, as has been and is now to a great extent the custom in many refined communities, for public exhibition, is, it seems to me, a questionable act of parental affection. Yet many do so, and boast, when otherwise advised, of their ability to toughen. Mother, your child may be only one of a hundred to survive such experiments ”

“ We kindly make an earnest appeal to all parents to look well to the health of your children. If you value their happiness, and a pleasant, happy home, acquaint yourself with the laws of health, and follow them as strictly as circumstances will allow. Many parents care more for their children's appearance in public than they do for their health. Mothers following the pride of their heart instead of the laws of health expose the bodies of their children to disease. ”

“ We shall consider, for a moment, the more important details of the routine care that you should give yourself, for the baby’s sake, and then we shall be ready for the pleasantest task of all—the actual care of the baby himself. ”

“ Babies and older children with special health needs such as severe chronic illnesses, birth impairments, and related conditions often require early intervention and highly specialized care. A family-centered, comprehensive program of medical, educational, and social services in the community and in the home may also be needed. ”

“ The next most important thing appears to me to be, that a mother, as far as other duties will permit, take the entire care of her own child. I am aware that people of moderate fortune cannot attend exclusively to an infant. Other cares claim a share of attention, and sisters, or domestics, must be intrusted; but where this must necessarily be the case, the infant should, as much as possible, feel its mother’s guardianship. If in the same room, a smile, or a look of fondness, should now and then be bestowed upon him ”