From our archives: on the letters page

Conflicts between mothers and nannies were also rife, as shown in an extract from Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: Chapter 16: Friendship and Support, Conflict and Rivalry: Multiple Uses of the Correspondence Column in Childcare Magazines, 1919–39

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The expansion of nursery training and a new focus on the importance of educating as well as caring for young children meant that Nursery World, which first appeared in 1925, filled a significant gap in the market. Claiming to be ‘the only magazine in the Kingdom devoted to the greatest profession in the world – the profession of the nursery’ (3 Dec 1925: 1), it seems to have been unique among mainstream women’s magazines in its assumption that the interests of both mother and nanny needed to be addressed. Like the college magazines, Nursery World contained articles written by experts on different aspects of childcare: physical, mental, educational and emotional life. At 2d a copy, however, it was much less expensive than the PCC Magazine (which only appeared annually and cost 1s 6d) and was similar in appearance and frequency to the ubiquitous tuppenny domestic weekly women’s magazines.

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The falling birth rate and smaller families after the war, together with declining numbers of residential domestic servants led to greater involvement by middle-class mothers, not just with housework but also in their children’s upbringing (Holden 2013: 87; Gittins 1982: 34). This meant that Nursery World’s launch in 1925 was timely  and also marked the point when the importance of educating nannies was becoming more widely recognised through the formation of the Association of Nursery Training Colleges. The appearance of these new initiatives reflects rising interest in childcare   as a career and a vocation for middle-class young women during the interwar years (Nursery World  16 Dec 1925: 87). Although the great majority of childcare workers were still working class and mostly learned on the job, from the late nineteenth century children’s nursing had become a recognised occupation for respectable young women, particularly those without sufficient education to become teachers or governesses. Many families wanted their nannies to be trained in the latest childcare theories and practice and, in response to this demand, qualifications soon became more widely available. In her book on careers for women, Eyles stressed that ‘The days of the uneducated “Nanny” are over’ and that the growing demand for educated young women meant that salaries would rise to as high as £80 a year plus board and keep (1930: 103).

The importance of nannies being educated to do childcare, rather than simply learning on the job was a frequent topic of discussion amongst upper-class and middle-class mothers. Yet as childcare grew in social significance and sharing care with nurses and nannies became more common, so too did the opportunities for conflict. The fact that a trained nanny might now come from a similar background to the family she worked for, and/or had greater expertise in childcare theory and practice meant that mothers often struggled with boundaries. All these concerns are reflected in correspondence columns during the 1920s.

Consensus and Conflict in the Letters Page

As noted earlier, a principal purpose of correspondence columns was to maintain a sense of group bonding and, in the case of childcare magazines, to put often lonely mothers and nannies in touch with one another. Nursery World’s correspondence column ‘Over the Teacups’ borrowed its name from an earlier title, Woman at Home (Beetham and Boardman 2001: 166). Conveying a sense that readers were meeting in person for a cosy chat, the editor originally aimed it at nurses, offering them the chance to exchange views of their experiences and gather inspiration: ‘Because we all know how apt molehills are to look like mountains when we brood over them alone and how they sink into their proper proportion when we talk them over with others’  (16 Dec 1925: 88). Yet it was not simply nurses who contributed, and the column soon brought into public view clashes and conflicts between parents and nannies. These seem to have been a subject of great interest to readers; they were prominent from the magazine’s inception and complaints were positively encouraged. For example, one mother’s concern about her ‘untidy’ nurse was met with the response: ‘I am delighted to hear from a Mother with a grievance’ (13 Jan 1926: 184), while another maternal complaint about the excessive demands of trained nurses was met with the rejoinder ‘now college nurses. I leave you to reply to this’ (3 Feb 1926: 236). Yet, while in early editions of the magazine the editor usually responded to letters directly, as the volume of correspondence increased correspondents were largely left to speak to one another without any mediating editorial voice.

Correspondence columns have always had an important function in periodicals and newspapers, offering a voice to readers albeit mediated through editorial, and often featuring controversies which might increase circulation. A much-publicised Daily Telegraph correspondence in 1888 on the subject ‘Is Marriage a Failure?’, for instance, received 27,000 letters to the editor and ran for six weeks (Robson 1995: 38–9). …As Beetham asserts, ‘The letters page . . . offers readers a place and some power to par-  ticipate in negotiating the meaning of their social identity in public print.’ The letter embodied ‘a set of narrative and social conventions’ that readers recognised. It offered versions of women’s life stories for readers to match or contest, whatever the level of their sophistication as readers’ (Beetham 1998: 225–6). This was especially necessary for nannies, when they gave their versions of life stories anonymously, and expressed feelings which if openly voiced to an employer might have cost them their job. The difference is striking between nannies’ often quite dull and formulaic letters in private collections which tell their employers how good and happy the children are, and the much more entertaining and assertive ones they wrote to Nursery World, which described their conditions of service, the pros and cons of their relationships with parents and children, and complained about difficulties in their jobs (Holden 2013: 17).

Mothers were equally frank. Often afraid to express their feelings directly to a nanny who could easily leave them without notice, they spoke their mind in no uncertain terms to Nursery World. In early editions complaints were made about their nannies’ ‘untidiness’, ‘hopelessly bourgeois’ ideas and unreasonable demands to be waited on by junior nurses or maids.3 While others countered these criticisms by explaining  the importance of appreciating nannies, ensuring that they were ‘happy and comfortable’, offering them ‘the run of my bookshelves’, ‘extra outings’ and bringing up ‘sweets and fruits from the dinner table’ (27 Jan 1926: 232; 10 Feb 1926: 280). Aware of the importance of the column in encouraging this kind of correspondence, the editor responded to one mother by suggesting that her ‘grievance will melt away if properly tackled’; and to a nurse who objected to the tone of the letters because they were ‘apt to make nurses very discontented’, she maintained that ‘occasional grumbles’ acted, like thunder, as ‘a safety-valve’ to clear the air, while a talk with ‘congenial friends over difficulties does us all good’. However, sometimes it was better to ‘hold our peace’ than for nurses and mothers to confront one another directly when they had something unpleasant to say (3 Feb 1926: 256).

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Finding a nanny willing to help with housework was a perennial problem which became more urgent with the declining numbers of live-in domestic servants after the First World War. … By the 1940s, when many more mothers than nannies were writing to Nursery World, the problem became even more acute with correspondents despairing of ever finding a nanny who was willing to do housework (Holden 2013: 143)….

One of the Family?

…In Nursery World, problems relating to the relative authority of a mother and nanny were expressed … directly. One nurse was counselled not to worry or feel bitter when her advice to the mother was not always followed (16 Dec 1925: 88), while Miss Richie with seventeen years’ experience, complained bitterly about the difficulties she often had with mothers who wanted to pick their babies up when they cried and maintained that: ‘if a mother has a really good competent Nurse, would it not be better if she left Baby entirely to Nurse’ (23 Dec 1925: 112).

This last letter, which initiated a debate about ‘interfering mothers’, must be viewed in the context of the leading childcare theories in this the period. Until the Second World War childcare training manuals were dominated by the ideas of the New Zealand-born writer Truby King and the American behaviourist psychologist John Watson who advocated strict routines, fresh air, and keeping a physical and emotional distance between mother or nanny and child (Hardyment 2007: 168–79; Richardson 1993: 32–6). Children’s nurses were taught to let children cry, with one text going as far as to advocate complete separation of a new-born baby for twenty- four hours from its mother, leaving it alone in a quiet room, and in the worst cases sedating it, in order to solve feeding problems (Kennedy 1930: 49).

These views suited many nannies who found it easier to impose this kind of regime if children did not have too much maternal contact. Nannies responding to Miss Ritchie, however, were divided in their reactions. One agreed about the difficulties she had with a mother ‘fussing and worrying needlessly about baby’. Another, who sought consensus and received positive feedback from the editor, maintained that she wanted the mother ‘to share in the nursery life, and uphold my authority as I uphold hers’.    But it was also clear that this policy was partly for her own benefit enabling her to go on holiday ‘knowing that the nursery routine will go smoothly, and that the children will be happy’ (13 Jan 1926: 134). Not all mothers, however, subscribed to the Truby King approach, with child-centred theories influenced by psychoanalysis becoming more visible by the end of the interwar period. Ursula, the wife of the psychiatrist John Bowlby, took a lead in this respect, giving her views to ‘Over the Tea cups’ on several occasions in the early 1940s. In 1939 she also recorded in a private journal her fury towards nurses who would not allow mothers to pick up their babies when they cried (Holden 2013: 91).

While the college magazine editors did not encourage their correspondents to be too critical of mothers, the 1925–6 Nursery World columns featured a lively, long-running ‘interfering mothers’ debate with contributions from both mothers and nannies. The first mother to respond began her letter with the provocative challenge,    ‘I suppose your column is open to Mothers as well as nurses for I am sure we have quite as many grievances to air’, but ended by pinpointing a problem for all mothers who employed nannies: their essential interdependence, which made open discussion of differences so difficult. These difficulties were heightened both by the professionalisation of nannies and the fact that they both lived and worked in the home where they were simultaneously both part of, and not part of, the family. Frustrated by the untidiness of her ‘good and kind’ nurse, she explained: ‘I don’t like to speak to her   and I don’t want to part with her’ (13 Jan 1926: 184).