The Daycare Dilemma

I don't need to tell you that the financial cost of daycare is extremely high. If your child is in daycare now-you are already well aware of the considerable chunk this expense takes out of your budget. Daycare can come with a hefty price tag, but quite frankly-the providers certainly aren't paid enough for all that they do. Their true job is to replace mothers, and the art of mothering cannot possibly be measured at an hourly rate of pay.

The monetary cost of daycare can be tremendous, but it is certainly small when compared to the emotional and physical costs that daycares cause the children who are in them. Let's take a look at some of the evidence I've collected regarding the negative effects that daycare has been found to have on children:

• In one study, seventeen percent of the children who were placed in childcare for more than thirty hours per week (during their first four and a half years) exhibited behavioral problems and aggression as reported by the teachers in their kindergarten
classes. (2)

• A small but significant link has been found between time spent in daycare and how positively a child interacts with his/her mother. (2)

• The number of caregivers and the amount of time children spend away from their parents harms parentchild relationships, thus weakening cognitive and emotional development. (3)

• Children in daycare have shown a fifty percent higher chance of repeated ear infections. (4)

• In a nine-country study, children in daycares were more likely to have a history of poor hearing, tympanostomy tubes, tonsillectomy, or adenoidectomy. (5)

• Children under two were more likely to be hospitalized for lower respiratory tract illnesses if they were in daycare centers with more than six children. (5)

• Young children in daycares are slightly less likely to bond well with their mothers than stay-at-home children. (6)

• A Finnish study of 2,568 children found that children in daycare centers accounted for 85 percent of the pneumonia cases in one-year-olds. (7)

• A child who has not experienced strong attachment to a primary caretaker during his first two years of life-with the first year being of primary importance-is not likely to be able to establish and maintain stable intimate relationships, such as close friendships or even marriage. The earlier the disruption of the attachment process occurs, the more serious and long-lasting the damage will be. (8)

Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and author of The Irreducible Needs of Children, states, "A warm, loving human relationship is very important for intellectual development. Children form their capacity to think and self-image based on these back-and-forth interactions. Fewer of these are appening, because families are so busy and more care is being done outside the home. Studies [show] that for all ages, 85 percent of day care is not high quality." (8)

For working moms, the hours spent at home are harried and few, leaving many moms wishing they had more vitality and time to invest into their families. The family unit suffers the consequence of an absentee mother. Marriages do not receive the attention they require and deserve. The child is deprived of an early bond with his mother, natural maternal nurturing, and the emotional availability of the mother during her work hours. The human imprinting that should be carried out by the mother is then unnaturally performed by the caregiver-because the imprinting still takes place.

The bonding and imprinting process for the child becomes even more problematic when he is placed in a typical daycare center, where the average rate of employee turnover is over half of their staff each year due the combination of low wages and high stress. (9) The child first experiences the loss of the mother for attachment purposes, and then bonds with a caregiver, only to lose that caregiver, and the next, and the next, and so on. The result produces a child who has a difficult time forming meaningful connections to anyone due to excessive emotional loss, and who also has complications with trust and self-worth issues. Why trust anyone when they'll just leave you?

Of course, there are other choices in childcare situations, such as the nanny, a smaller in-home daycare, or a grandparental caregiver. I would say that these are a small step up from the infant and toddler-farm daycare centers, giving children a bit more stability in their lives. Let's not deceive ourselves though-these conditions are still only a mommy substitute, merely giving our children second best.

If a parent chooses not to stay home with their children, the instance of grandparental childcare is usually the next most beneficial circumstance for the child. Nonetheless, this arrangement is not completely positive. Not only does this situation deprive the grandparent of a proper grandparenting relationship-causing the grandparent to act as the main disciplinarian-it also unfairly places the full responsibility of raising the child onto the grandparents' shoulders. Mother abandonment and separation issues continue to be the core problem in any of these situations, and this cannot be remedied. When a child is separated from its mother, there will always be abandonment issues incurred-this is unavoidable.

Although not the most popular option, it is also possible for a mother to work full time outside of the home without the need for daycare or other parental substitutes. We can do this by deliberately choosing to work a shift opposite that of our spouse, so that our children will not be forced to spend time away from home with strangers. If we truly must work-this alternative is the closest thing to a win-win situation for everyone involved. The child is given the opportunity to bond with her parents, the relationship between a father and his children is strengthened, the guilt of child abandonment is lessened for the mother, and there is no added expense to the family for daycare costs.

Of course, there are also disadvantages to this lifestyle. Some of the disadvantages include: the inability to spend an abundance of weekday time with our husbands, the sacrifice of having to work in a job other than what our specialized
education implies (which could mean less self-satisfaction and the possibility of earning less money). We cannot have it
all.

The concept of the institution of daycare was created to assist mothers who had suffered the tragic loss of a husband or who suddenly found themselves divorced. Having to earn an income in order to feed and clothe their families, these women were left with no other alternative but to place their children in daycares. Today, women of our society seem to view childcare as the first choice, while staying at home is viewed as living counter-culture-or only for the lucky. It is distressing to see that something which was once viewed as an unfortunate last resort has become known as the only ordinary, logical thing to do.

Sending our infants off to daycare does seem to be the norm these days, but the basic needs of babies and children still and always will remain the same. Simply because a society accepts a certain behavior as normal does not mean that this
behavior is beneficial to our children.

The changing priorities of a culture does not cause children to magically evolve into sub-human beings who miraculously no longer need mothers to rear them! Children not only need to be raised by their mothers, but they also want to be raised by their mothers. Ask any child you know! Ask your own children with whom they would rather spend their days.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm . . . this is a hard one! Whom do you think they will choose? If you were a child, would you prefer to spend each day with a devoted mother who raises her own child solely because of her overwhelming love for him or her-or with a caregiver who only spends time with the child because she is paid to do it?

I do not write this article in the hopes that you will condemn yourselves in anyway. In my experience as a mother of four, and an observer of many children I have seen the needs of a child in his formative years. What I am asking is that we as a society look at the ways in which we are treating children, and to look at the world from their perspectives. Children are not given the choices that we are entitled to as adults. The family into which they are born is their lot in life. I am asking that we as a culture re-evaluate our priorities and decide if the pursuit of things and material wealth is worth the emotional security of our nation's children.

Resources:

(1) Dr. Kevin Leman, Bringing Up Kids Without Tearing Them Down, p.
78.
(2) National Institute of Child Development [NICHD] Study of
Early Child Care in the November 1999 issue of Developmental
Psychology.
(3) Kelly, R.J. (2000).
(4) J. Froom, "Antimicrobials for Acute Otitis Media? A Review from
the International Primary Care Network," British Medical Journal
315 [July 12, 1997] p.98-102.
(5) Diane K. McHale, "Talking about Childcare: What's the
Research Really Say?," Mothering Magazine, Issue 112, May/June
2002.
(6) National Institute of Child Development (NICHD) Study of Early
Child Care in the November 1999 issue of Developmental Psychology.
(7) P.J. Louhiala, "Form of Daycare and Respiratory Infections
Among Finnish Children," American Journal of Public Health
85, no. 8 (1995) p.1109-1112.
(8) "Day Care Information: Effects on Infants Emotional
Development," Pagewise ©.
(9) Marilyn Elias, "More Kids in Declining Daycare," USA Today,
November 7, 1991.