ABSTRACT
The question was deliberately framed rather vaguely so that our informants could single out for themselves those changes which to them seemed especially significant; but we soon found a definite pattern of responses being formed. For some mothers, the great and obvious change was in material standards of living: they had been brought up in want, whereas their children knew hunger only as appetite. For others, it was the trend away from strict, and even harsh, discipline, and towards a greater flexibility, which was the salient feature. One aspect of this, so often discussed that it deserves a category of its own, was the greater freedom of speech between parent and child, occasionally deplored as 'cheekiness', but much more often welcomed as making for a relationship of real friendship between them. These were the major changes; there was a large number of mothers who remembered particular incidents or aspects of their own treatment in childhood and were determined to act differently themselves; and there were a few who had been brought up in unusual circumstances and who recognized in these the origin of some of their later attitudes towards their children.
