Toys, feeding bottle warming devices and playpens are expected to turn up in the families' room. I see no problem with the rooms we already have. The most important person, she says, is the baby, which needs to be fed in a quiet environment, not in public, so that the mother can concentrate on what she is doing. An opportunity is needed to talk to the baby, play with it, relate to it. The way lifestyles change is bound to have a long-term effect.
People think and act differently year by year without necessarily knowing it.
A century ago, MPs never contemplated a woman in the sacred Commons chamber at all. Most members, male and female, are reckoned to agree with madam Speaker's ruling. Squawking children in libraries and supermarkets are bad enough without causing mayhem in the middle of a debate or being sick over the MP on the bench in front. Linda Pike, mother of two and secretary of a Hertfordshire Women's Institute, understands the relevance of a mother keeping the baby with her when it is impossible to find a babysitter. Yet, with a salary of 40,000 a year, she believes that an MP can afford to pay someone to take over when she goes off to speak, vote or listen.