oint noted is the need of two
parents for every child. The illegitimate child is handicapped. It is
a sound social movement that aims to make every "slacker" father
accept his share of responsibility in the case of the unmarried mother
and either marry the woman or give financial aid for the child. It
does not thereby secure two actual parents for the child. The orphan
child, the half-orphan child is handicapped; more so if bereft of
mother than of father, but if the father dies or deserts after
marriage, all experience shows that even if the mother lives and is
capable and faithful, the child who lacks a father has many
difficulties to overcome. The child of parents who have come to
dislike each other is seriously handicapped. A forced tie between
those who no longer love each other creates an atmosphere often fatal
to comfort and happiness and one to which children, sensitive as they
are to the feeling of their elders, react most unfavorably. The child
of divorced parents is handicapped; perhaps not so often or so
seriously as when held for years in an atmosphere of mutual hatred,
suspicion, fault-finding, and distrust--handicapped, however, by many
social embarrassments, by shock to affection given, perhaps, to both
parents equally, and by the often great difficulty of finding a
suitable home for the child of the divorced couple. The child that is
not wanted and comes into a world hostile to his birth is handicapped
in proportion as the influence reaches him at the moment of conception
or lessens the power of the parents to give him what he needs before
or after he arrives.

There must, then, be two parents, in love, as in law, to start a child
right--two parents who live until he has reached age of independent
direction and support, two parents who pull together for themselves
and for him, two parents who are equally recognized in law as acting
for him in guardianship throughout his minority.

The recognition of some of these needs of every child has been more
general and intelligent than that of others. For example, the equal
guardianship of the father and mother, their mutual responsibility for
financial support when financially competent, their equal control over
the family life and their common pledge to the community of parental
care--this has not been recognized until recently, is not now in many
of the States of the Union and perhaps not perfectly in any one.

At an Annual Meeting of the Uniform Laws Commi