Abstract: This study explores the development of 'family-centred care' in New Zealand as part of an international movement advanced by 'experts' in the 1950s concerned with the psychological effects of mother-child separation. It positions the development of 'family-centred care' within the broader context of ideas and beliefs about mothering and children that emerged in New Zealand society between 1960 and 1980 as a response to these new concerns for children's emotional health. It examines New Zealand nursing, medical and related literature between 1960 and 1990 and considers both professional and public response to these concerns. The experiences of some mothers and nurses caring for children in one New Zealand hospital between 1960 and 1990 illustrate the significance of these responses in the context of one hospital children's ward and the subsequent implications for the practice of 'family-centred care'. This study demonstrates the difference between the professional rhetoric and the parental reality of 'family-centred care' in the context of one hospital children's ward between 1960 and 1990. The practice of 'family-centred care' placed mothers and nurses in contradictory positions within the ward environment. These contradictory positions were historically enduring, although they varied in their enactment.