I was just browsing the times and stumbled on this headline: Poor Behavior is linked to time in day-care.
I admit it, at first glance, as a stay-home mom, I felt vindicated. I thought, “Wow, I really must be doing my kids a service by staying home with them.” (This of course, despite the fact that they are not always well-behaved)
But then I actually read the article. The study does not take into account what other options the parents had available to them, and it did not take into account what the turnover rate was at the daycare establishments and what emotional impact that had on the children.
I actually felt ashamed for that earlier feeling of vindication. But I think that my initial emotive response is one that many people reading that article probably felt, and unfortunately only serves to fuel the “mommy wars” debate started over 20 years ago on the merits of staying at home versus going back to work.
The real discussion a study like the one sited in the Times should fuel, is why there aren’t better child-care options available for families. Parents, and primarily women, are left to make a “choice” of their careers or supposedly risk the potential emotional well-being of their children. This is just absurd. If there is really to be a choice for women, corporations or the governement or both need to come up with better work/life options.
Right now, I’m in the middle of getting Chapter 97 off the ground. I manage to do this with my partner after hours. (ie: once the kiddies are asleep). No complaints here. I’m in love with the process of starting a company and think we’re on track.
But four years ago, I left a perfectly good career behind, because I couldn’t find a good work/life resolution at the time. Even at an investment bank, a substantial sum of my salary would have gone to pay for a day-care, which in turn only paid the people watching my kid a measly 6 bucks an hour.
When child care workers are paid just a smidge more than say, migrant workers, how can we expect quality care? The onus should not be on the parents to choose career or child care. The onus should be on the government and corporations to figure out how to improve things. Often times debates over work/home center around women who have lucrative careers in higher education, law or business. Seldom do I hear buzz about what the women or parents are doing who themselves make little more than the cost of daycare….What do the receptionists, admins, retail workers or child-care workers themselves do? Their jobs are critical to families, and in turn to society, but they are rewarded so little in pure dollars, that they are easily to lured to other occupations.
I’m curious about companies that offer on-site daycare. I fantasize about those types of companies–companies that let you eat lunch with your own child. I wonder if the study noticed any differences between children in daycare and children in daycare at their parents’ places of work. I would imagine that the security of knowing your parents are in the building, might balance the insecurity of watching child-care workers quit for the hope of better opportunities.
Years and years ago I worked with young preschoolers and understood then the emotional bond that develops between caretaker and child. Children don’t understand money. Ask any 3 year old what money is for and you’ll get responses like “to put in the pig” or “ummm…well, I don’t eat money”. It’s not just stressful for children to have care-givers quit and move on to more lucrative careers. It’s stressful for the care-givers themselves. Typically people who want to work in child-care centers actually like children.
If they were treated with more respect and rewarded financially for a job well-done, perhaps they would be more inclined to stay. Hedgefund managers are awarded millions of dollars in bonuses for increasing wealth. What are tomorrow’s citizens, and today’s children if not the future wealth of this country?
Shouldn’t the people who care for them…who invest in their futures, be rewarded as well as the hedge fund managers? There is just as much risk…a person can be president after all…or a murderer…Shouldn’t we hope that they want to grow up to take care of children.Wouldn’t it be great if a career in child-care was actually financially rewarding?