A leading pediatrician, Dr Simon Rowley, has outlined exactly why children are better off in the care of a parent rather than a daycare centre. He provides this information with evidence, facts, reasonable points and an argument to carefully consider.
If you actually care about children.
Enter Early Childhood Council Chief Executive Sarah Farquhar. Apparently, she doesn't care about truth, she cares more about inconvenience. Perhaps she doesn't like to listen to things she needs to hear? How does she counter the evidence presented?
She throws her toys out of the cot.
"It's going back to the times of women being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. That's not healthy for children and it's not healthy for women...making parents feel guilty about their choices is not the way to go."
Adults face up to the truth, children have the luxury of ignoring it. The real issue is we as a society are allowing adults to behave like overgrown children.
Maybe it all starts in daycare?
Farquhar dismisses the evidence, the argument, the entire discussion with "This is a very old-fashioned stereotypical viewpoint that isn't in keeping with today's times"
No, today's times is all about hiding from the responsibilities of parenthood. It's all about caring about ourselves at the expense of our children. Farquhar takes this further by suggesting that "not all parents have children by choice and that when parents can't cope ...daycare can be a haven for children."
Put them in daycare or they die perhaps? A weak justification to the central discussion.
She continues with the theme of motherhood being a task conducted out of guilt: "Centres are still better than hiring a nanny or deciding to stay home with a child out of guilt." Maybe she is talking to a target market, and I hope that isn't her default point of view. Her logic about hiring a Nanny though applies equally to daycare centres: "You can have a nanny, for example, who is totally useless." She already suggested that applies to parents "forced" into parenthood. Why are daycare centres exempt from such criticism?
In turn, Dr Rowley asked the question "why on earth are they having children if they don't want to be with them?". I think the answer is more complex than the pure simplicity of that question, such is life. Perhaps the question we need to train ourselves to answer is "now that we have children, what must we do to do this right?"
Daycare centres may want to shut down this debate, may want to avoid any suggestion of blame or guilt, but I think this is the kind of discussions we must have, if we care about our children and we care about the kind of society we wish to live in.
There is no question it is tough on working parents, and many feel they have little option but to hand their child's upbringing over to a daycare centre.
Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
Related Link: SST 7 June, A3.
Minor update 10am
If you actually care about children.
Enter Early Childhood Council Chief Executive Sarah Farquhar. Apparently, she doesn't care about truth, she cares more about inconvenience. Perhaps she doesn't like to listen to things she needs to hear? How does she counter the evidence presented?
She throws her toys out of the cot.
"It's going back to the times of women being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. That's not healthy for children and it's not healthy for women...making parents feel guilty about their choices is not the way to go."
Adults face up to the truth, children have the luxury of ignoring it. The real issue is we as a society are allowing adults to behave like overgrown children.
Maybe it all starts in daycare?
Farquhar dismisses the evidence, the argument, the entire discussion with "This is a very old-fashioned stereotypical viewpoint that isn't in keeping with today's times"
No, today's times is all about hiding from the responsibilities of parenthood. It's all about caring about ourselves at the expense of our children. Farquhar takes this further by suggesting that "not all parents have children by choice and that when parents can't cope ...daycare can be a haven for children."
Put them in daycare or they die perhaps? A weak justification to the central discussion.
She continues with the theme of motherhood being a task conducted out of guilt: "Centres are still better than hiring a nanny or deciding to stay home with a child out of guilt." Maybe she is talking to a target market, and I hope that isn't her default point of view. Her logic about hiring a Nanny though applies equally to daycare centres: "You can have a nanny, for example, who is totally useless." She already suggested that applies to parents "forced" into parenthood. Why are daycare centres exempt from such criticism?
In turn, Dr Rowley asked the question "why on earth are they having children if they don't want to be with them?". I think the answer is more complex than the pure simplicity of that question, such is life. Perhaps the question we need to train ourselves to answer is "now that we have children, what must we do to do this right?"
Daycare centres may want to shut down this debate, may want to avoid any suggestion of blame or guilt, but I think this is the kind of discussions we must have, if we care about our children and we care about the kind of society we wish to live in.
There is no question it is tough on working parents, and many feel they have little option but to hand their child's upbringing over to a daycare centre.
Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
Related Link: SST 7 June, A3.
Minor update 10am
The fact that Sarah Farquhar is incapable of either recognising or formulating a logical argument doesn't make Simon Rowley right. Her foolishness notwithstanding, he remains an ass.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a picture of Dr Rowley, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as to his biological heritage.
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding the novelty of a talking donkey, what parts of his argument did you not like?
I'm calling him an ass because he's making a political argument based on social science and letting people think it's medical expertise talking.
ReplyDeleteAs to what's wrong with his argument, it's based on the assumption that higher levels of cortisol, and therefore stress, in daycare kids means daycare is a bad thing. Personally I'm not surprised about higher stress levels in daycare kids, because everything useful I've learned in life, including how to deal with other people, has involved stress - relaxing comfortably at home hasn't ever produced either a lot of stress or a lot of useful life experience for me, as far as I can recall. Being put in an environment where you have to take non-family-members into account will be stressful for a 2-year-old I should think, but the question of whether that's a bad thing or not is a matter of opinion, not science.
A man who sees the value of 5 year olds in the salt mines, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteA certain amount of scar tissue by age 3 does have some fundamental character building stuff I'm sure.
Although, I'm not sure I agree creating higher degrees of stress in two year olds than navigating life at home requires the effort of full daycare.
Just because a certain amount of stress may be beneficial, it does not follow that adding even more stress, continuously, is brilliantly educational.
Although, if they were at Guantanamo Day Care Centre they might eventually cough up and admit to having an extra bikkie at the 6am muster.
Just because a certain amount of stress may be beneficial, it does not follow that adding even more stress, continuously, is brilliantly educational.
ReplyDeleteBut that's exactly what's at issue, isn't it? To put it bluntly, this prick had better have some actual evidence that the additional stress on children in childcare is not of the beneficial, educational variety but at a genuinely, significantly harmful level before he starts quacking on to people that in his considered expert medical opinion I'm an uncaring, feckless or incompetent parent for putting them in there. Otherwise he's just another jerk with an opinion.
And I think you've hit the point of my post.
ReplyDeleteThe reaction of the Day Care Sales lady was more about "don't make me feel guilty" than considering the value of motherhood.
People want to believe outsourcing parenting to an open plan animal farm is the proven "modern" way of ensuring women have freedom to work.
I doubt the reaction would be so impassioned if parents didn't have nagging doubts that daycare is "perfectly fine".
From what I see, it's a compromise, not an improvement.
You feel you need to make that compromise, fine. You want to argue it's an improvement and life works out better - I'm all ears.
Although, I'm more interested in finding out if more parents would prefer an alternative, if they felt they had one.
Socialists are all keen to redistribute income for any reason, even fund daycare. What if we were to fund motherhood? (Or perhaps even parenthood?)
PS: I don't think you are an uncaring, feckless or incompetent parent for putting them in there.
ReplyDeleteLet's see the evidence for the benefits of added stress for kids in daycare, Milt--otherwise, to use your own words, you're just another jerk with an opinion.
ReplyDeleteI know you don't think I'm a bad parent for putting my kids in childcare Zen, but that's exactly what Rowley said about me - look no further for an explanation of the impassioned response.
ReplyDeleteKG: Yes I am just another jerk with an opinion. You may notice though that I'm not claiming some level of scientific or professional authority for my opinion, unlike that other jerk with an opinion, Rowley. You may also notice that I haven't made any claims for the benefits of daycare over home parenting, merely pointed out the gaping hole in Rowley's claims.
Such irrefutable logic, such compelling, well-reasoned argument - it's a joy to read...
ReplyDeleteQuite unlike the elegant arguments of those seeking to assuage their own guilt at outsourcing the care of toddlers. :-)
ReplyDeleteSometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
ReplyDeletePM, I fogot to ask - have you read Dr Simon's research paper with references to other research on Cortisol levels and the effects in toddlers, or were you just assuming his research paper didn't actually hold any research?
ReplyDeleteI'm now curious to get a hold of it and review his findings.
I have only the newspaper's report that his view is based on the work by Gunnar on cortisol levels - if his conference paper is published, I haven't seen it.
ReplyDeleteI have had a squizz through Google Scholar for Gunnar on cortisol levels and childcare. The most relevant one is probably "Cortisol levels of young children in full-day childcare centers: Relations with age and temperament," published in Psychoneuroendocrinology in 1999. I can email you a copy if you can't get access to it. Interestingly, although the fact of elevated cortisol levels and their correlation with observed behaviour is discussed, there's no suggestion that children's health may be harmed by it - they're mainly interested in whether elevated cortisol levels really are correlated with shy/anxious behaviour.
This one was also interesting: "Morning-to-Afternoon Increases in Cortisol Concentrations for Infants and Toddlers at Child
Care: Age Differences and Behavioral Correlates," published in Child Development in 2003 (although Gunnar wasn't the main author). Here's the summing up:
In sum, the finding that cortisol increases over the day in full-day out-of-home care has been replicated a number of times. It appears to be age related, with the largest increases observed among toddlers. It seems to bear some relation to children's social behavior and temperament. Based on previous research, quality of child care also seems to be involved in predicting whether and how much of a rise in cortisol is observed. However, at this point, the factors that influence these rising patterns still cannot be determined conclusively, nor do we have any evidence that these increases in cortisol affect children's development. The magnitude of the elevations in cortisol that we witnessed are not in the pharmacological range, and we do not know if there are adverse effects from chronic but small context-dependent elevations in cortisol for young children. This is an empirical question still to be addressed. Nonetheless, because cortisol is a potent steroid hormone that is known to affect the central nervous system, evidence that this hormone is elevated over home baseline levels for many young children in child care warrants our attention.
I don't find anything much to disagree with in that. My cursory look through the Science Citation Index didn't indicate that that empirical question has since been addressed, but then Rowley's presumably put a lot more time and effort into it than I have - as you say, it would be interesting to see his paper to get an idea of what he's basing his views on.
Hey, thanks for that info PM. I'll bookmark this and do some ferreting when I get through my FYE deadlines.
ReplyDelete