Discussions on the role of kindergartens are also continuing in Austria where in recent days Bishop Klaus Küng, head of the office for the family of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, commented as follows on the debate on assistance to childhood during the first three years in the life of the child: “It is right and proper that there should be kindergartens for particular situations; but these must not become a programme. Mothers must have the chance of being able to devote themselves to their own child”. Küng rejected the criticisms suggesting that this choice is the result of a conservative image of women: “In actual fact these are values that alone can ensure our future”, he stressed. “On the contrary, it is a conservative position to want to repeat what was practiced by Communist governments: the having precociously removed children from the family because it was believed that the State could better perform the task of bringing them up”. The pastoral theologian Paul Zulehner has also expressed a view on the issue: “Mothers must not be faced by the need to ‘hand over’ their infant due to being overburdened by professional and family tasks”. “Kindergartens – he said – are not safe deposit boxes for toddlers”. For his part, Johannes Fenz, chairman of the Catholic Association of Families (KFO), has vindicated genuine freedom of choice for mothers and hoped for “greater objectivity and less emotion” in the debate.
