Some teachers felt that many mothers worked where there was no economic necessity, as the father was earning enough to support the family. It should be noted in this connection that at the time this material was gathered there were more opportunities for work than there were men to fill them. Under ordinary conditions there would doubtless be a certain amount of unemployment in these Negro families which would cause more mothers to work from economic necessity. Many of the families investigated, where both parents were working, were reported as getting on very well, though there were some cases of real poverty. In a number of instances the families could not seem to make ends meet on a good income because they were ignorant and did not know how to spend their money, or because they had not been able to adjust themselves to city life.
Of the eighty-six fathers who were working, few were in skilled occupations which would command a substantial wage. Most of the mothers were engaged in work that took them away from home. A few did sewing, hairdressing, and laundry work in their homes, but the large majority went out to work. Work carried on in the home frequently has as bad an effect on the child's school attendance as the mother's absence, for the child is sometimes kept at home to help and often finds the work more interesting than school.
The following occupations of mothers of retarded children were noted:
| Day work | 22 |
| Stock Yards | 12 |
| Hairdresser | 4 |
| Laundry | 4 |
| Maid | 4 |
| Barrel factory | 3 |
| Seamstress | 3 |
| Domestic service | 2 |
| Box factory | 1 |
| Car cleaner | 1 |
| Cleaning (hospital) | 1 |
| Dishwasher | 1 |
| Elevator | 1 |
| Foundry | 1 |
| Housekeeper | 1 |
| Lamp-shade factory | 1 |
| Waist factory | 1 |
Education of parents.—Of the eighty-six fathers, thirty-one were illiterate, and forty-eight had gone to elementary school but had completed only the second, fourth, or sixth grade. Five of the fathers had gone to high school, and two were college graduates.
The figures are slightly better for the mothers. Out of 112, twenty-one were totally illiterate, seventy-six had gone to elementary school, ten had been in high school or college, and five were not reported on. Eighty-eight per cent of the mothers, therefore, and 91 per cent of the fathers had less than a high-school education. Though there were many illiterate or poorly educated parents who were eager for their children to have advantages which they never had themselves, others, as in any illiterate group, no matter what the color, failed to appreciate the importance of school.
Home discipline.—A number of teachers reported that they were unable to discipline the children in school because they were undisciplined at home. In seventy-three of the 116 homes there was found to be discipline, in twenty-two a lack of discipline, and twenty were not reported on. Discipline seemed to be the responsibility of the mother in the large majority of cases, and many of the twenty-two undisciplined children were boys who were beyond the control of the mother. In every case but four where there was no discipline the mother was working, so that the child did not receive much care during the daytime and the mother was too tired to bother about discipline at night. Lack of discipline can also be traced to the fact that the child has not always lived with the parents but with relatives who have been lax in the matter of discipline.
Home care.—The physical condition of the home, the preparation and substance of the meals, may be expected to affect a child's health and therefore his attendance at school. The homes of eighty-four children were reported to be clean and twenty-five not clean, while seven were not reported on. In twenty-one cases out of the twenty-five reported not clean, the mother was working. In forty-seven cases out of the eighty-four reported clean the mother was working. In many of the forty-seven cases there was an aunt or grandmother who took care of the house.
In many homes the ignorance of the parents was obviously responsible for failure to provide the kind of food adapted to the needs of the children. A great deal of fresh meat, usually pork and bacon, potatoes, rice, and coffee were the staples, while green vegetable, fruits, cereals, and milk were noticeably lacking. Also, when the mother is away all day the food is hastily prepared, which usually means that it is fried. The girl who gets home from school before her mother has finished her day's work usually starts the dinner, or brings something from the delicatessen. Many children are given twenty-five cents with which to buy lunch, and in three extreme cases the children were given money to buy all their meals, with no supervision over what they ate.
Difficulty of adjustment.—When all the causes contributing to retardation were taken into consideration in the histories of the 116 retarded children studied, it was still obvious that the greatest stumbling-block to normal progress was previous residence in the South. The retardation of children from the South is explained in a variety of ways.