Commenters want a little more from me than, “Oh, please.“
Okay, I’ll go point by point on the excerpts from Ms. Saubier’s book:
A baby who spends five years at one center will lose one-third to almost half of her caregivers every twelve months or so. At any given moment, a parent’s baby could be in the arms of someone they don’t know well, or someone they have never met at all. Children in daycare are frequently cared for by strangers.
My kids were daycare babies, and our experience could not have been further from this example. We experienced low staff turnover and always knew who was taking care of our children.
I am asking parents to think about the amount of attention they pay their infants and toddlers when they are home with them on the weekends — then divide this attention by the number of children in your child’s daycare. At best, this is the amount of attention your little one can expect to receive.
New York State, where my kids spent most of their daycare days, mandated a 4:1 student-to-teacher ratio. So, my kids were always in a small group with a caregiver.
A day spent in daycare begins with abandonment. Staff members are prepared for this and employ many strategies to lessen the daily blow.
Yes. Our daycare providers were masters at dealing with “abandonment.” Their preferred technique was to hug the child at drop-off and then involve the child with his or her friends. Barbaric, I know.
When parents are told their children are miserable all day, every day, this does not speak well of the daycare center. That is why parents often hear a rose-colored version of how their child’s day is actually progressing.
Parents have responsibility to visit the daycare and see for themselves what’s going on.
“Socializing” in daycare fosters aggressive behavior because children are forced to go into survival mode. As a daycare child, if you want to play with a toy for any period of time, you must fight for it.
Nonsense. My children were taught the exact opposite at their daycare. If one child had a toy and another wanted it, the standard answer from the teacher was to discipline the student trying to take the toy. The kids were taught to respect each each other and each other’s property.
If you are a daycare child, many if not all of the following statements will apply to your life: You will not be fed a meal on demand when you are hungry. You will wait for your food while you sit in your seat. The meal will be plopped onto your tray or table. Someone will come around occasionally to help you, but you must wait. When you are finished, you will continue to wait. Eventually a wet rag will pass over your mouth and hands before you are taken out of your seat. Hopefully, at this point your bottle is ready. You will then be propped up on your pillow that has the spit up of several others on it. Then your hands will be maneuvered into position so that you may hold the bottle yourself. If you happen to drop it, you will wait again until someone notices.
“Many, if not all”? Not a single statement fits our experience.
My personal feeling is that there is no perfect answer to parenting. Daycare, stay-at-home-moms, relatives, nannys, etc. all have pluses and minuses. But to write that “the truth is that daycare is one of the greatest tragedies of modern America” is hyperbole that does nothing to help address the real reason kids are failing in this country, and that’s an epidemic of really bad parenting.
Mr. Pollowitz - I read Doing Time. The author worked in New York State too in an infant room but this center was exceptional and only allowed 6 babies with 2 teachers. 25% less than your infant room and she still does not feel she was able to do right by those babies. As for visiting often, most moms and dads cannot be there all the time visiting. I don't believe the author is trying to anger parents, she is just explaining what she saw when she cared for some of America's children. Let's assume your center is different and you do not need this information provided by Venker or Saubier. But what about the rest of the children who are dealing with very different circumstances? What about babies in an infant room that allows 12 infants? Let us all take a deep breath and consider them too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you for this very strong response. I'm a day care mom and you've represented my perspective very well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, people with money can and do find good daycare. The problem is, if you have good day care, you're either very, very lucky - or you're paying more than most Americans can afford.
When I checked out day care centers, they only came in three varieties: the ones that cost literally more than I earned, the ones that had waiting lists, and the ones that were in-your-face unsafe.
I ended up just quitting my job and going home to be with my child, but not all people on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale have that option - and I still regret that I was forced into it. I would have been better off if I could have left the workplace on my own terms, instead of because of a child care crisis.
I was led to believe that I had the option of keeping my job without sacrificing my child's well-being and safety. That is true for upper middle class professionals, but it is not true for less affluent Americans.
I ended up finding good day care solutions later. But they can't be taken for granted. We have a real crisis in the US when it comes to just who watches our kids.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEconomics does come into play. If daycare costs $1,000 per month per child and you have two kids, then you need a pre-tax income of about $36K just ot break even. This is so because the 2nd income is always taxed at a high marginal rate.
You also might not want to work 40 hours per week just to pay the cost of daycare alone. Of course, giving up that extra $36K may be tough.
Some on the lower socio economic scale can choose alternatives like in home daycare or bring in a grandparent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you. It's people like Mrs. Venker who made me try to avoid putting my kids in daycare like the plague. But since my husband doesn't work in a profession that pays enough to support a family on one income, we had to find something between that and mom-at-home. First we tried tag-teaming but hubby couldn't hack Mr. Mom for 8 hours a day. Then we turned to grandmother-as-nanny. Sounds like the next-best-thing to Mom, but what it really meant was that our daughter didn't get the physical activities and socialization that other toddlers were getting. Now that she's in pre-school and I watch her with other kids her age who did go to daycare, those children are much better socialized and on a better developmental path, and I wish we had used daycare earlier. I wish conservatives hadn't scared me away from what has worked well for many of our neighbors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis guy is proving the point! He is unwilling to take a closer look at daycare. Unless he worked at his child's daycare, he was not there 40 hours a week to see everything. He is missing the whole point of the original article.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt seems like Greg is a little harsh here on the book. Unless there is some evidence this person is lying, then they've done their homework and are making these claims based off the evidence they've gathered.
Two, it makes sense that a child in daycare will get less attention then one at home. My personal experience is my wife spends most of the day interacting with our daughter, it's impossible she would get this level of attention at a daycare.
In Greg's favor, I do think that good parents can raise a child, regardless of whether they go to daycare or not. However, don't many of us conservatives support the traditional family because it is the BEST model? Children of single parents are more likely to end up in jail, do drugs, get pregnant etc. Is it because all single parents are bad? No. Are all children of single parents guaranteed to be messed up? No. However, a child of a single parent is MORE LIKELY to have difficulties thus we support the traditional family. I think that Suzanne is making the same point regarding daycare.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI might suggest reading the book before critiquing it. Much of your anecdotal experience does not really rebut the full context of these little summaries and snippets.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseShock: Man who had his own children raised in daycare rolls his eyes at claims that daycare is not good for children.
How incredibly naive for Mr. Pollowitz to assume that all of the adults who have been paid to watch his young children over the years took as good care of them as their mother would have!
Beyond that, another problem with daycare is the enormous amount of time your kids spend with other people's kids. They end up picking up the bad habits, language, and attitudes of other families -- particularly the older siblings in those families. We have enough bad habits in our own family. We don't need to add the bad influence of 12 other families into the mix.
To make matters worse, the authority of the parents from the child's perspective is diluted among the mix of pseudo-parent authority figures he is expected to answer to. Why would anyone choose to have other adults compete for their children's regard any more than regular schooling requires?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhere daycare and schools fail is in creating the sense that parents are relieved of their responsibilities for their children and can just trust the "experts" to fix their kids. In many ways, the system is designed to foster that sense.
This is not, however, universal. There are parents who insist on taking that responsibility and holding it, and daycare providers and schools that both encourage and cooperate with those parents. When this is the case, not only does no permanent harm occur, but positive advantages accrue.
I'm glad, for Mr. Pollowitz's sake, that in his case it is so. But the "epidemic of really bad parenting" that he mentions is too often aided, abetted, and at least occasionally (if not more often) created by excessive societal reliance on day care.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's a shame that I need to bother to mention that one person's anecdotal experience offers virtually no evidentiary value when talking about the broader realities of a subject.
At risk of Godwining -- if the only Jew you ever talked to about the Nazis was George Soros, you might come to believe that weren't so bad. You can find people who LOVED living under Soviet Communism, people willing to swear on the life of the dear emperor that life in North Korea is great, and people who are rabidly, nationalistically proud about the wondrous system of modern day China. Does that make them right? No, of course not. Pollowitz's own upper-class daycare experience, likewise, proves nothing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is a little like the debate over bilingual education.
Advocates tried to claim that bilingual education was totally awesome at helping kids learn English, yet any time consumers are highly motivated to learn a new language and are spending their -own- money to do so, they always choose intensive, immersive programs.
By the same token, if consumers believe daycare's benefits are that attractive, you would see more moderately affluent stay-at-home moms sending their children to daycare (rather than just occasional "Mom's Day Out" events).
After all, there are plenty of potential benefits to having a stay-at-home spouse other than child care - it allows the unpaid spouse time to prepare nutritious meals, pursue a hobby, have a predictable schedule and balance out the other spouse's hurried, long days.
Yet consumers don't seem be voting that way with their dollars. It's kind of tough to argue with the market.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA simple question for those who put their children in daycare for any reason other than economic necessity (and by that I mean no choice, not wanted a bigger house): Why have children if you don't want to raise them?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said otghand. I have often wondered the same myself. I'm a stay at home mom to three preschoolers and there is nowhere else on earth I would rather be than raising them myself alongside a wonderful husband who works hard to provide for our home.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe high quality daycares probably do exist, however, they are rare, there are waiting lists, and most people can't afford them. What is the point of working if your entire paycheck goes to paying a stranger to take care of your children. I don't need a hobby or some kind of fulfillment or need to contribute to society, I would go to work for MONEY to take care of my family if I had to, but if the numbers just don't add up what is the purpose?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe most affordable (for those without government handouts) is at home daycares. I have thought about taking a child in to make some extra money, but in my heart I know that I would have preference for my own children. If my child and the other child were crying at the same time, I would choose my child to care for. That would be wrong so I would not do it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere really is no such thing as "high quality daycare." If someone's child turns out okay in daycare, they did so despite what their parents did to them. Just like pblic school - I turned out okay despite my government school experience. Seriously, why have the kids if you don't want to raise them?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI may be in my mid-30s, but I can still remember daycare from my early years. The lice, colds, ear infections, strange rashes, and then there's the other children going all Lord of the Flies (biting, pinching, hair pulling, bullying) when the adult isn't paying attention. Plus the shaming for wetting your pants, and on and on. I know its been three decades, but those experiences still haunt me.
A few months ago I started shopping around for a daycare / preschool for my daughter since I have to work to help pay down our debt, and the only place that didn't make me queasy is too expensive ($800/month for two days a week). So she stays at home during the day with her father who works from home, with occasional day-trips to her grandparents' for fun with her aunt and grandfather. It's less than perfect, but at least I know who she's with and I don't have to be riddled with the guilt of putting her through my experience or anything like it.
As for development and socialization, other children can't teach her anything about how to get along unless there's adult guidance, and there's no guarantee of that or whether the adult will pick favorites. By being around a small number of adults who she can bond with and trust, she picks up on social cues and how to interact with others. When she meets new children, she says hi and introduces herself, and makes friends within minutes. I'm not terrifically worried about how she'll do in school and other situations because she's got a healthy home environment and we're all doing our best for her.
I can't speak to other parents and their situations, I'm too busy with my own.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was a stay at home mom for our three kids. A couple of years ago I ran a hands-on science camp for a week in a local day care. My daughters (ages 11 and 17 at the time) came with me each day to help out. This daycare was clean, well run, and tried to provide a loving and educationally enriched environment for the kids. My daughters both hugged me when we were finished and thanked me for staying home with them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreg, "De Nile" is more than just a river in Egypt. In takes more than a few anecdotes from a top-end daycare to make up for the data.
Seriously, given any choice, what rational person would decide to have their child monitored on a daily basis by mimum-skilled, minimum-wage folks with no experience, qualifications, and often no background checks, in the company of random child strangers from greatly varied backgrounds and levels of health, behavior, and hygeine?
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