to considering doing my dissertation on whether nursery care is harmful for young babies?

[purepurple]

I don't want to start a fight but have been mulling over ideas for my dissertation for my early childhood degree and came across this report by unicef www.unicef-irc.org/publications/507 and wonder if it would be a worthwhile subject.
I am interested in attachment theory and also the pressures that modern day families face when choosing when to have children and what to do for the best. I am also interested in brain development and can see that all 3 areas are covered in the report.
Any opinions?

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

Could you do a study of what background experiences make people likely to think nursery care is harmful? It'd be interesting to see if there are factors that make people more likely to think it would be or wouldn't be, and you could do that without needing years and years to get the results, maybe?

[sungirltan]

i think your original title is too difficult. how long is your diss?

you could do something like the case for and against group childcare or you could do an exploratory review of nursery care in the millenium. in both those or similar you could easily cover negative aspects of group care documented alteady. have a look at steve biddulp and oliver james and go through theere reference lists for ideas of further reading. might be easier to write a rough title (for yourself at this stage) or negative responses to nursery from exisiting research and make a list under this heading. then from that are you able to formulate a question to which you have the answer (from said reading)?

i dont find your topic offensive and dd has been at nursery from 12 months.

[purepurple]

It's 10,000 words. I have read Biddulph, gave me lots to think about and have read Gerhardt 'Why love matters' too. I haven't read any oliver james.
I just need to pinpoint exactly what I am trying to find out and then I will have my title.
At this rate, writing the bloody thing will seem a doddle compared to trying to work out what I am writing about.

[DuelingFanjo]

"How can nurseries support breast feeding when babies are starting younger and younger?"

my nursery has a breastfeeding room, I am very lucky that my baby will be going to a Creche on the site where I work and I can pop over to feed if I want to.

Perhaps you could do some kind of study of on-site/workplace nurseries and how they benfit both parents and babies? Would fit in with your attachment parenting interest.

[HuwEdwards]

who cares?

[sungirltan]

hmm ok 10,000 is quite a lot :) (mine was only 4,500)

ok so what you should do is break the total of words down into sections or chapters if you like. you can title each of these with a question on a theme and then leave youe title aside for a while until you have these sorted.

if you lose faith in this you could write about stay at home dads instead - thats what i'd do :)

[sungirltan]

oliver james is a chauvenist wanker but he has plenty to say aobut group care and ratios etc. he writes in the guardian and also 'how to raise boys' (or similar title) similar stuff to biddulph.

gerdhart is great :)

[hairfullofsnakes]

I think it would be very useful as I really find it odd
That some parents would put a small
Baby in nursery (under nine months). I understand that their is a need for many to get back to work (I am self-employed so do my work at different hours by the way) but surely if you have a baby you can give that baby nine months before putting them in a nursery?

[snowmama]

Lots of good suggestions here my note of caution would be that OP both your initial question, and reading list quoted assume that nurseries are in fact bad for young children/babies.

Whatever the title of the dissertation, is that the conclusion you are expecting?

[yougivemumsabadname]

I wonder what the point of such a dissertation would be, other than to give working parents another stick to beat themselves with if you decide that nursery is in fact harmful.

Parents aren't going to stop using nurseries based on these results, it's just going to make them feel crap about their choices. Why don't you base your dissertation on something helpful and productive rather than providing more fuel for the anti working parents brigade.

[beanlet]

It's WAY too big a topic for an UG dissertation. But surely you have a supervisor to help guide you towards a suitable topic? Why are you posting on here?

[yougivemumsabadname]

hairfull, not everybody has the luxury of nine months off! You must live in a very closeted circle if you don't get that. What about mothers who get three months leave at 90%pay and three months at 50% pay. Many of them can't afford nine months off! I find it really odd that you fail to understand this.

BTW all of mine have been to nursery (I have one 18 month old, 1 13 year old, 1 10 year old and a DSD) and they are all really happy, well balanced kids. The oldest two went to nursery before six months.

TBH I see your post and dissertation as a thinly veiled attack on working mothers who send their children to nursery.

[yougivemumsabadname]

Beanlet, I suspect she is posting on here to stir up trouble.

[snowmama]

Yougivemums, my thoughts exactly.

[magicmelons]

hairfullofsnakes if the government gave 9 months fully paid mat leave then of course it would be odd but as they don't its not odd at all.

Having been home for a year after my first baby 9 months after my second i am only going to be home for about 6 after my 3rd, that's because although i only work 3 days without my wage i could not pay my mortgage and both of my other children's school fees. This baby is a much wanted suprise baby and i can't see that the 1 day a week it will have to attend nursery from 6 to 9months is going to make the tiniest bit of difference. What would you propose i do with my baby giving that it is not financially viable for me to be off work and only being paid 400 quid a month omp.

[snowmama]

Oh xposted....it didn't actually occur to me that OP was stirring particularly.

[magicmelons]

oh ps OP i do think your dissertation is UR, i can't see you will come to any scientific conclusions in an UG dissertation.

[umf]

Noooo, this topic's the kind of level of research project which would require a team of 8 people led by a professor, and still would only produce results of limited value.

You need something teenyweeny.

Btw, babies aren't starting at nursery earlier. Why do you think they are? Perhaps that would be a suitable topic, actually. Look at two nurseries which have been around for a while and look at the ages of children starting and try and find out what has influenced the changes? Or maybe that's still too big.

[beanlet]

No doubt. Not nice. My child goes to nursery because we would go bankrupt otherwise.

Besides, it's only been since the 1950s that many women have been able to opt for stay at home motherhood. For most of human history, working class women have always worked with childcare done collectively, upper class women always palmed theirs off onto nannies, and until the 19C there was no middle class to speak of. Any claims made that assume the possibility of one parent choosing to stay home are historically illiterate.

[springbokscantjump]

I think that you need to chat to your supervisor about suitable topics. 10,000 words isn't very long at all, more an extended essay, especially given the breadth of topic you have chosen. It is also an emotional minefield - who would you talk to? How would you define 'harm'? etc etc.

You only need to read hair's post to see that it is a can of worms that is best remained closed.

[ohmyfucksy]

It sounds like you don't really know what you're doing. The studies you've been looking at are major studies conducted over years. You can't do anything like that. You mention reading books by Oliver James etc. - sounds like you basically just want to do a literature review and write that X says A and Y says B. That's just rehashing other people's studies.

You sound a bit airy fairy to be honest - 'I am interested in brain development'. It's not a neurology degree you're doing though, is it? You can't hope to investigate brain development in any meaningful way in your own study.

[Northernlurker]

I think there might be something about looking at the age children are starting nursery. I suspect that 9 moths paid leave means that babies are generally a little older now on starting than they were 5 years ago.That's a hypothesis anyway - is it actully the case? Has longer paid maternity leave actually translated in to longer maternity leave?

It certainly did for me - I would not have been able to take 6 months unpaid leave with dd3. 3 months was doable though.

[Rhian82]

WRT breastfeeding - DS started nursery just before six months. I took him in every day with bottles of expressed milk, and expressed while I was at work. In total I breastfed him until he was 15 months, and he never had one bottle of formula.

So actually, if you're committed to it then nursery doesn't need to have any impact on breastfeeding.

[lynehamrose]

Tbh I am inclined to agree that you seem to have grasped at a big idea without any real idea of its suitability for undergrad study. I think you need a lot more guidance from your tutor.
Re: your query about bf and childcare - its not rocket science, Many mums express milk and leave it with the nursery/childminder/ nanny