Story: Diverse families

Mum, Dad and the kids

Mum, Dad and the kids

During the 1993 election the Labour Party campaign focused on 'Ken and Marion', parents in a fictional middle-income, conventional nuclear family. The Evening Post interviewed a real Ken and Marion, parents of three children, who lived in Lower Hutt. They discovered that this family was relatively well-off, as Ken earned $60,000 a year. They paid $1,000 a month on their mortgage and groceries cost $600 a month. The real Ken and Marion were concerned about unemployment, crime, education and health policies, and the future cost of tertiary education for their children.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PAColl-7327)
Reference: EP/1993/3541
Photograph by John Nicholson

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Rosemary Du Plessis and Candice Diggelmann, 'Diverse families - Extended family and sole-parent households', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/31592/mum-dad-and-the-kids (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Rosemary Du Plessis and Candice Diggelmann, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 22 Jun 2018