To NOT feel guilty that my kids are in childcare?

[Kanfuzed123]

Inspired by the childcare eating a £45k salary and the anti nursery sentiment from a few posters on there as being inferior for a child.

anyone else not feel in the slightest guilty that there kids are in nursery and have been post maternity leave?

yeah when they cried at drop off was rough and I called into the check out they were but that soon settled. They do lovely events for the parents and upload lots of amazing activities they do, they’ve made fantastic friends.

I could’ve reduced my hours but I didn’t, we could’ve maybe managed on one salary (glad we didn’t when rates shot up) but I went back FT when dc 1 was 15 months (used annual leave for part time before then) and dc2 was 13 months.

anyone else just not feel guilty? I like the lifestyle we can get when we’re working, especially since the 15 funded hrs and now 30, it’s so affordable. (Eldest is in school and youngest now has the 30 hrs) bill is less than £400 a month inc club etc. I like having something else to focus on too.

im not alone or am I?

I've read a lot of studies into early childcare (and studied it at uni) and I've never seen anything that shows the opposite. It's quite a consistent finding across countries that under 2s show an abnormal cortisol spike (cortisol being a marker of stress) when they go to nursery compared to typical children or adults (where cortisol is high at the start of the day and then tapers off).

You keep saying the evidence isn't there - but it really is. There's also long term studies that link long days in nursery to aggression, antisocial behaviour, poor social skills and mental health problems in teens and adulthood.

Obviously there's lots of variables to all this stuff, and I've personally used early childcare straight after mat leave so I'm not anti nursery, but I think parents can't really deny that it's not the best for babies under 2. It's more something that is necessary for a lot of families imo

Can you link to those studies?

I went back at 3 months for the same reason, being out for too long would've been tricky.

I'm not at all concerned about them going to nursery from 3 months.

No I said no one is presenting any evidence rather using inappropriate sources to draw broad conclusions.

be interested if you could cite the studies that show those adverse outcomes

Here are some @Kanfuzed123 :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405629.2011.571846

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200606000421

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2737370

https://academic.oup.com/cesifo/article-abstract/60/2/338/284199?login=false

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-17898-001

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29904929/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-10039-001

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pol.20170603

To clarify and to go back to your original aibu, I don't think you or any other parent should feel guilty for using nursery. I think parents have to weigh up the pros and cons of their individual situation (especially the massive financial constraints). However, a well-reasoned decision needs to be based on factual information.

oh look! I can also use google and copy links to show positive outcomes of nursery care 😄

https://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/long-term-study-following-4500-children-links-childcare-better-outcomes

https://www.eif.org.uk/blog/the-seeds-of-success-taking-a-closer-look-at-new-data-on-the-impact-of-early-childcare-and-education

https://acf.gov/opre/report/childrens-learning-and-development-benefits-high-quality-early-care-and-education

https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/the-impact-of-nursery-attendance-on-childrens-outcomes

I wish men spent the kind of time women spend worrying about this. It’s getting better with shared parental leave and just expectations changing but I don’t think many fathers are even considering feeling guilty. And very few of them quit their jobs or take a demotion or all the sorts of things that women do regularly to keep the family going. It’s frustrating that we are still here in 2025.

I am an immigrant from the states so think the maternity leave, tax free childcare, flexi working, full time hours often being under 40 per week (my workplace is 35 hours for full time work which is still crazy to me), etc etc is just magical. I think it’s wonderful that society is all working together to take care of children and parents for something around 4-12 months and couldn’t have imagined this before moving.

I also think the care of children is really specific - as we have 0 family here we have never spent a night away from our kids and almost never had them anywhere except with one of us or at nursery for a decade and counting. it’s very different to people who have parents or siblings or any sort of village. It’s different if children come from a house without adequate care. It’s different for children with different challenges. It’s different for children who love socialising and bore easily. There’s no magic number and I think almost any solution can be great if the child has someone who loves them wholeheartedly and is looking after them.

What I know for sure is that it did not work out well for my mother who was home for 15 years. When my parents divorced I was a teenager and despite my dad being a good person, they still couldn’t make his salary stretch to two households. She was decades behind on her career and never caught up. Her pension is awful and she struggles financially. I promised myself I’d do everything I could to ensure I could take care of my kids no matter what - if my husband gets sick or loses his job or leaves us I will pay the bills myself if need be. And i am grateful to live in a system that allows me to literally have it all - a career I enjoy and lots of time with my kids in the evening, on weekends, for weeks and weeks each year when I take holidays and for the entire first year of both their lives. It’s wonderful.

Just to make clear, I’m not suggesting anyone should read all of these (or any others linked on this thread) and make decisions for or against nursery based on narrow pieces of research, some where there’s obvious stakeholder bias and many of which are downright irrelevant.

im just making the point that we can all use google and copy and paste.

parents know their own children and their own context best. Why not trust them to raise their children in a way which might not exactly match someone else’s?

It was commonplace when my eldest was born as we got 16 weeks maternity leave.

The nursery we use takes them from 6 weeks. I've never seen a baby that young actually there though.

You asked for links, I gave them to you, then you snidely say I'm just googling.

When it comes to the ones you shared, your first 2 links specifically looks at children above the age of 2.
The third lumps all children from 0 to 5 years old together, so tells us nothing about the younger years we're discussing.
The last link just focuses on children over 3 years old.

So no, I wouldn't use them to argue in favour of nursery for children under 2.

Have you actually read any of this. It states that this is for older children and actually says childcare below 2 is only midly beneficial for the most disadvanteged.

„The SEED impact at age 5 report marks something of a departure from previous research, providing quite mixed findings. While it suggests there are benefits in terms of better verbal ability when using friends and relatives for care from age 2 to the start of school, it also shows poorer socio-emotional outcomes for children using childminders and group-based provision, particularly when they are in this provision for a large number of hours per week. While some tentative findings suggest some positive outcomes for disadvantaged children when starting provision before age 2 and having moderate amounts per week, it remains to be seen if this will be replicated at age 7.”

i said: I wouldn’t use them to argue anything, along with any of the other links posted on this thread. I made it clear that it was posting precisely to illustrate that point!

i made the decision for my children’s childcare based on my children and my circumstances and the chose care that I was supremely happy with (well, had to be as once both kids were there it cost my entire take home pay!)

they loved it, they’ve grown into fabulous adults, that’s what matters.

We clearly cant all use Google as what you posted actually supports the opposite argument to the one you’re making 🫣

I agree. Nursery can be beneficial for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And what about babies who are having childcare with childminders? They are also in childcare but no one is mentioning them

Childminder is similar to nursery so the same principle applies.

Is it though? Childminders say they provide a home like care. So surely more similar to being at home than being at nursery.

My eldest and youngest both were in nursery. Middle one had a childminder ( neighbour and friend of mine) .DD2 did seem to spend a lot of time being charged about on school/ playgroup runs

It depends.

There is a vocal childminder voice on MN who will disagree but I don’t see being in a childminders home and in a nursery as hugely different. The nursery we use is actually a home (or was before being converted for business purposes) so there aren’t bedrooms or whatever but then children aren’t generally given free access to. Cms home so I don’t see the difference really. I think at a CM the children probably get out of the home more than a nursery, that’s the key difference.

As far as I can tell there is much less research focused on childminders, and even less focused on nannies. From the little I've read (for example this https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-02729-001) childminders (childcare homes) are generally better than nurseries (childcare centres) but can still lead to more cortisol spikes than in children looked after at home by a relative. The quality and consistency of the childminding obviously matters a lot. For nannies, no idea.

Then why did you specifically ask "Can you link to those studies?"

I think maybe the irony was lost on some people.
my point is that we can all google and find ‘research’ to try to support a particular viewpoint.

Let‘s suppose an amazing piece of research comes out tomorrow indicating that a nursery/ childminder environment is beneficial to babies. Would I start a thread saying look, you’re depriving your baby if you don’t send them to childcare?

of course not. Because I recognise that there are numerous variables and that every individual’s circumstance is unique to them. And that parents do what is best for their own children in their own unique set of circumstances.

I think generally speaking, parents whose children go to nursery really aren’t interested in whether other parents use it or not. It’s the ones who don’t choose to send their children who seem overly invested in parents who do!

But actually @gattocattivo there's one point where I completely agree with you. Earlier you wrote "parents know their own children and their own context best. Why not trust them to raise their children in a way which might not exactly match someone else’s?"

Currently, the government stops paid parental leave earlier than many other European countries and is spending a lot of money (but still less than is necessary) directly subsidising nursery.

What I would be in favour of is for the government to stop directly funding nurseries and instead to make direct payments to parents irrespective of if they are using nursery or not.

That way, parents could use the extra cash to either help them stay at home with their children or to pay for nursery. They would be the ones to choose.

I think many parents would decide to reduce nursery hours in that context, which would reduce demand and make nursery a bit cheaper. Win-win for everyone.

I think many parents would decide to reduce nursery hours in that context, which would reduce demand and make nursery a bit cheaper. Win-win for everyone.

Except for the nurseries themselves, many of which are struggling to stay afloat as it is. So not win win at all is they go under.