Even the best daycare is going to devote only a fraction of the instruction/attention to any individual child.
If your approach as a parent is to give "the kid" ice cream and electronic distractions, I think you should seriously reevaluate your priorities.
Well, technically I guess I can't disagree with you because you said 'care... more', but I assume you meant that to also mean 'care... better', which is about as wrong as it gets. Why would anyone instinctively know what's 'best' for a child's development, let alone better than trained professionals in a professionally build environment? There are tens (hundreds, more likely) of thousands of people working every day to understand how children develop best, and convert that into actual practice. It doesn't stand the smell test to say that all that is nonsense because parents somehow know better.
The other aspect is how much love children get, and yes of course nobody loves children like their parents. But again there is no reason to think that just 'being loved in close proximity', say, 4 hours a day + weekends is worse than having a parent around 24/7. Nor does 'love' equate 'stimulate good development'. If you are going to claim that in the 'good old days' when children were at home all day with mom they would be doing crafts and nature education and going to playgrounds with equipment designed to stimulate activity in a safe environment, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale that you might be interested in.
The daycare worker certainly wouldn't run in front of a bus to protect my kid, which I'd do in a heartbeat. But that's not a day-to-day need.
That statement is useless because it is a tautology. If the parents don't care about or for their children (and trust me, many, many don't) according to you by definition they must have a "psychological abnormality." Being a selfish dick is a bad trait but "psychological abnormally" is going quite far. There's plenty of selfish dicks in the world who couldn't give a rat's ass about their children, including deadbeat dads (or moms) and others. Only in an idealistic, fantasy world do parents universally care for and about their children.
Many people who care about their children are very aware they don't have the ability to care for their children. That's a big reason why adoption (family adoption and stranger adoption) exists. The gender role assumption is pretty weird too. Some people have two fathers and an unknown egg donor for example - do these children have less care than someone with two heterosexual parents? Or do two moms trump a mom and a dad?
BUT kids are super exhausting and demanding and if you are worn out you won't be able to help them much either. I tried not to bring up my kid the way you describe, but I have to say there were plenty of times when I did the equivalent (no iPads or TVs in our case but essentially much the same). He came out fine.
There is no perfect system and what works for one doesn't necessarily work for someone else.
When I'm home with my three kids, my instinct is to think of the skills that will aid them later in life and work on that through various levels of play. Often that's sports - practicing basketball, baseball or whatever sport they happen to be doing at the time. Other times that's academics where if I know they're having a problem with sight words or multiplication I will work on that with them. Sometimes it's just playing video games together.
Looking back on being a father I think to the things that they do on a daily basis and remember, "My wife and I taught them to do that." All the time spent working with them on crawling, walking, talking and everything since then has created fantastic memories I wouldn't trade for anything.
This amuses me. With things like that (crawling/walking/talking) I let my kid find his own way, in his own time. I have no intention of helping him with anything like it, or from school, ever - unless he asks.
What I do do with my son is play. Building radio control cars. Jumping on car hoods/bonnets in a scrapyard. Lego. Jumping in puddles. Flying kites. Making fires. Going on the odd helicopter ride. Concerts...
He will spend such a silly amount of his life being a student that my mission is for him to just be a boy. Without the spectre of under- or over-achievement. No judgement, regardless of his performance. Because no matter what, he is, and will always be, enough.
The same is true of stay-at-home parents. Some get exhausted after a few hours and others thrive in constantly nurturing and teaching their children.
Comparing the two isn't terribly useful unless you break it down further.
One unexpected upside is my wife spends so much time in the community it has really extended our circle of friends. The biggest downside, however, is I still get to enjoy half the chores because my wife is rarely home in the daytime(!) ;-)
Through out my childhood both parents had jobs with varying amounts of time requirements, with both having periods of stay a home spouse (I believe my father found this particularly eye opening) and both periods of 9-7 working time.
They always took the time to explain to me and my sister about why they were doing the things they were and ensuring that we were comfortable with their decisions. Now it may be that it was this honesty that had the greatest benefit. However I do think I have a much greater appreciation for the importance of a purposeful work life balance.
Mind you, not necessarily a highly even balance, just ensure that if you are working 50 hours a week, there should be a goal in mind. In fact every decision about lifestyle should be carefully thought about.
None of this is the direct benefit of a parent being at work. You would probably see all these advantages if one of the parents simply stayed at home, while the kids were in day-care. But where is the money going to come from for that.
I'd personally wager on the latter. We have plenty of studies on the topic of "being educated increases the average education level of your children."
I dont seem to have enough karma to create one unfortunately. Can someone else do it please ?
A bit circular. I am not against working mothers, just saying one should be clear about one's judgement. For me it is not a given that working is a good thing. At least not in general (not for any kind of work).
I am lucky to live in a country where my choice really is just a trade in the level of material comfort, but I understand this is not the same for everyone.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you work, you're a neglectful parent. If you don't, you're sucking off the state. (UK stereotypes)
I have done the 3 main variants of parent-work balance (staying at home, working at home, working out of the home) with my 2 children and I'm not convinced that any one is better than the other, personally. But what does one little anecdote mean in the grand scheme of things...
Which of the three options was best for you?
I'm actually in the process of working my notice at my current job so that I can return to working from home, but as it stands I have no intention of reducing my son's hours in childcare.
I'd like to think that I can find a balance between working (for mental satisfaction as well as financial reasons) and time with my youngest outside of childcare, but this depends on my success in the coming months. If nothing else my son starts school in September 2016 so at least I won't have a ~£645 childcare bill each month :)
The title of the article (Mounting Evidence of Advantages for Children of Working Mothers) seems to define having a career as an advantage, but is it really?
Picked these from the HBS post @ http://www.hbs.edu/news/articles/Pages/mcginn-working-mom.as...
Anyone have a link to the paper?
>daughters of working mothers earned 23 percent more than daughters of stay-at-home mothers, after controlling for demographic factors
> [In day-care] the likelihood is that the kids are in a richer environment, materially and socially.
Think single parent suffering from mental health issues and unable to work, or other disadvantaged stimulus poor domestic environment.
My sister ran an after school program for mostly disadvantaged kids and I am certain that she cared for and about her children more than some of their parents. Not all, just some.
You see examples of extended family stepping in all the time making sure children are cared for and their needs met when the parents are doing a horrible job.
Unfortunately we do not live in an idealized world like many might believe, otherwise there wouldn't be infanticide, honor killings, child abuse, child neglect, child abandonment, etc., etc.
I'm not sure what my point is other than "some people's experiences are different from yours." (I'm sure you knew that, just chiming in with my story as a counterpoint)
Everything you listed under your play I've done with my three kids with the exception of jumping on hoods in a scrapyard. I could add endlessly to the list including stop motion animation, working with electronic circuits, learning to dive, etc, etc.
I think essentially we agree; the time a child spends with his parents should be the best time for both the child and the parents.
Not thread parent, but parent nonetheless :) I'd say the ideal response would be ignoring that error but instead replying with "I caught the ball" in an appropriate situation. Kids learn languages by example, all we have to do is give good examples. Correcting "catched/ caught" puts focus on the error, not on the dozens of cases where grammar was fine. If done too often (e.g. not what you described), that can actually impede learning, as the kid could develop a self-perception of being constantly wrong.
In general the pedagogical ideal is creating a setting where learning can take place by itself. The role of the teacher is reduced to designing the setting. Your ball game example can be seen as such a setting: You two are just having fun together and talk about that, and the desired learning of the language just emerges out of the situation.
(I'm an eduactional scientist, so maybe at risk of over-theorizing trivial examples :) )
I like what you are doing with your son, though, I have similar goals for time with my kids.
Then well-meaning adults think to themselves, "how can I optimize this child's development? How can I make every hour spent with him be at least 70% utilized in order for him to develop fully? What can I do to make him better than my friends kids, and especially to avoid becoming an underachiever?"
Maybe children know best how to play. And indirectly know what's the path of least resistance for them to learn about themselves and the world.
Disclaimer: IANAP
I'd agree that it makes intuitive sense that childcare could do better than exhausted working parents, and possibly even emotionally drained stay-at-home parents, but another poster pointed out that this study seems to say "people who can afford daily childcare have children with better outcomes" -- which might correlate pretty closely with "wealthier people's kids have better outcomes", which the research already told us.
As an aside, these kinds of discussions (where HN talks about the world's social problems) are the second reason I come to HN. I'll get exposed to great worldviews, from generally smart people, expressed by people who speak my language.
And child care, together with the possibly related problem of currently worse outcomes for children of single-parent families, are social problems that are potentially immensely valuable for society to solve.
* in the stranger sense of the word.
Plus all the teachers at Sandy Hook who gave their lives protecting their students.
Those two are just off the top of my head. The willingness to put one's self in danger for others isn't exclusive to parents.
>> I am curious why you think a 22 year old on near minimum wage cares more about engaging with your daughter
>> I am still surprised that rainier thinks that a 22 year old paid to look after his daughter cares more about her than him and his wife.
Maybe that's what you thought, but that's not what you wrote.
Eventually I would be eligible for state benefits and placed on a waiting list for a council owned property, but waiting lists are long. I might be able to get shelter in a women's refuge in the mean time, but I'm not sure that's an ideal place to raise my children just so that I can claim the moral high ground on childcare use.
Please don't take this as a critism of your decision - I made mine and I am happy with my choice, but I don't expect that what is best for me is best for everyone.
I didn't think you were criticising parents who use childcare, least of all me, but I do feel it's necessary for people to understand that the "I'm too good for daycare" argument comes from a position of massive privilege.
Potentially more so than a tired daddy and mommy, yes.
I don't think the choice of not using daycare is one that can only be made from a position of massive privilege, but it does involve material sacrifices if you are middle class.
When I owned a house the maintenance cost was quite considerable. You can put it off for a while, but eventually it comes due. My guess is that it was around $750 a month plus I had council rates to pay on top of this which were another $250 a month.