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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that day care centres or 'nurseries' should be banned?

588 replies

Goodomen · 25/02/2009 22:24

Having spent some time working (doing supply) in several different nurseries I have been appalled by the treatment of the babies and and young children.

The babies spend most of the day crying, desperately wanting to be held or have some kind of one to one attention.

They are all forced to 'nap' at the same time whether they are tired or not.

They are put in highchairs and fed one by one with the poor children at the end of the row crying until it is their turn to be fed.

The worst part is when the parent arrives to collect their child and asks how they have been they are told 'He/She has been fine, had a lovely time' even if the child has been crying all day!

Why oh why would anyone out there child in such a place?
If you have to work get a childminder!

OP posts:
edam · 26/02/2009 23:09

How thick does someone have to be not to realise that parents do usually have regular, close contact with schools? And the NHS? And the transport network (or perhaps non-parents assume we are all confined to our homes)?

Jeez. I got the impression lower down the poster who doesn't appreciate that debate usually involves an exchange of ideas claims to work in education in some way or other. Hope ds never has the misfortune to come into contact with anyone so incapable of thinking.

unpaidworker · 26/02/2009 23:44

Londonone

Please, please print this off so you can have a laugh if you become a parent one day.

Northernlurker · 27/02/2009 00:00

So londonone - you don't have children so what has formed your opinion so strongly against paid childcare? Must be something - I assume you didn't wake up thinking - I wonder what age children go to nursery. I know I'll have strong opinion about this' So come on - cite your influences - I'd love to know what made you so sure?

purepurple · 27/02/2009 07:20

ooh, that was a long one, so long I can't think of anything to say that hasn't been said. Except that life is shit and you have to do the best you can

sarah293 · 27/02/2009 07:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

aGalChangedHerName · 27/02/2009 07:31

God what a shit thing to post

I think any kind of childcare is going to have really fab bits and also really shit ones.

I think nurseries you described do exist sadly (have worked in a few as a YTS) but i don't think they are the norm. So yes those kinds of places should be banned!!

I have aslo worked in a few really caring lovely nurseries where staff were brilliant with the children.

I am now a CM (have been for 14 years) and i know lots of great CM's. I also know a few that are not great. I also know good doctors and not so good doctors but i haven't given up on doctors on a whole.

Really sad to read all the posts where parents have said they would never trust a childminder

BoffinMum · 27/02/2009 09:01

I think perhaps it all comes down to choice and a fit with the individual child and family, does it not?

We probably need more of everything, and for it all to be funded similarly - i.e. nannies, CMs, nurseries and flexible working. In an ideal world they would all cost the same and parents would be able to pick on grounds of suitability rather than price.

Round here you only get nurseries and the odd nanny, and there are no CMs at all. After school club and holiday club places are also heavily rationed. So it's harder for families to find a good fit with their needs and the temperaments of their children.

londonone · 27/02/2009 09:03

Northernlurker - read again. I am not against paid childcare I am against nurseries for small babies. I come from a fairly large (extended) family where incomes range from low to high and across the board mothers and/or fathers have not worked when their children were very young. The joy and pleasure that I see they (the parents) gain from those months spent with their new babies strikes me as very precious and I simply don't think that is something you can ever get back if you lose it by putting a child into a nursery for 8 hours a day.

I feel that young babies do need almost one to one attention and nurseries generally don't offer that. In addition pay rates in many nurseries are appallingly low and the staff are frequently treated dreadfully. I know someone who runs several nurseries all of which are well thought of but even so many of the staff are somewhat transient in nature.

Finally I believe that if you have children it should be because you want to bring them up and see how they develop etc and if you will not take a career break for a year or 18 months because of it damaging your prospects then your priorities are wrong. I believe that this could be either parent btw. As I have said all along peoples situations do change and for some people it is impossible not to work in those cases I do feel a childminder or family are a better option. Of course there are terrible childminders same as there are terrible parents and terrible nurseries but as a general principal I think that a childminder is a better situation than a nursery and a parent is a lot better than either both for baby and parent.

The thing is that your baby is your No1 priority, no matter how much the nursery staff love/like your baby he or she cannot be their No1 priority as they have to treat all children equally and unless they work on a one to one ratio that means each member of staff will be dealing with more than one child not to mention all the ridiculous paperwork etc.

That is my view and if people think it unreasonable then so be it but I think very few people think that group childcare is the BEST setting for a young baby.

daftpunk · 27/02/2009 09:11

completely agree with you londonone

georgimama · 27/02/2009 09:19

"I have made no comments about peoples individual choices"

"I believe that if you have children it should be because you want to bring them up and see how they develop etc and if you will not take a career break for a year or 18 months because of it damaging your prospects then your priorities are wrong"

There is a glaring inconsistency between those two statements. Can anyone else spot it?

I can't be bothered with you anymore londonone, you genuinely don't know what you are talking about. I sincerely hope (for their sakes) when you have children that it is the rosy dream world you have in mind, and that life doesn't bite you on the arse the way it has a habit of doing.

twinmam · 27/02/2009 09:21

I deal with more than one child every day. They happen to be my own. Does this mean I should send one of my twins to a childminder where they would receive 'better' care. Am afraid I can't manage a one-to-one ratio as I can't split myself in two, much as I would sometimes love to

twinmam · 27/02/2009 09:23

PS Londonone there is something I'd like to introduce you to - it's called the real world. Maybe when you grow up you can join it but in the mean time stop trying to make mums feel rubbish.

BoffinMum · 27/02/2009 09:26

If I was off for 18 months, my job would have disappeared, because it would be patently clear I was dispensible. Probably the only reason they wouldn't get rid of me during the 6 month maternity leave I am planning is sex discrimination legislation.

If DH was off for even 12 weeks I imagine they would get rid of him like a shot.

We would be a bit stuck then in income terms, to say the least. Not good for the kids at all.

Ah, to see life in such simple, straightforward terms, with no complicated nuances and dependencies.

londonone · 27/02/2009 09:26

What is the inconsistency georgimama.

The first statement means that I have not singled out individuals on this board or in real life to say they are wrong.

The second means that there is a category of people who I do think have made the wrong choice, who they are individually I neither know nor care.

It's like saying that I don't think women should smoke whilst pregnant.

Obviously there are women who smoke during pregnancy but I am not picking out individuals and saying it to them personally.

Can you really not understand the difference?

spicemonster · 27/02/2009 09:26

"if you will not take a career break for a year or 18 months because of it damaging your prospects then your priorities are wrong. "

daftpunk · 27/02/2009 09:27

i could have written londonones post...and i have children....it's not a rosy dream, alot of women are living it.

londonone · 27/02/2009 09:32

Boffinmum - As you appear to be a highly qualified individual I would suggest that perhaps there is more than one job you can do in the world! As an example my cousin left her job had her baby and then when he was a little older she got a new job that was better suited to her new life.

Twinmam - again you have misunderstood if you looked further down my post you would see that one of the points I make is that a major reason that the care provided by a parent is better than a nursery (obv exceptions to this)is that it is your child and therefore the relationship is different to that of a paid childcare worker. You are parent to your twins and that makes a huge difference.

BoffinMum · 27/02/2009 09:32

With smoking during pregnancy, there is a clear and well-established evidence base that this has a detrimental effect on the foetus.

The evidence base against putting babies in nurseries is at best inconclusive and at worst politically driven. The research that has been done into this has been criticised.

I work with facts, me. Not supposition or conjecture.

londonone · 27/02/2009 09:33

spice monster - If you cannot put your child first for 18months of perhaps a 40 year career then yes I do think your priorities are wrong. Sorry if you are offended by that.

georgimama · 27/02/2009 09:34

Well indeed spicemonster, it's much better for your child to have an unemployed mother with no money sitting at home shoving the ADs down her throat and scared to answer the phone because of the balliffs, than to spend 8 hours a day in childcare. Much much better.

Daftpunk your endorsement doesn't do much, I actually think you are as deluded as londonone, since you think a woman who puts her child in child care for 8 measly hours a day isn't bringing up her child. Talk to me about children who go to school - are they no longer being brought up by their parents, or is this bringing up process complete by the age of 5?

spicemonster · 27/02/2009 09:38

like I said londonone, I'm dealing in the real world, you're dealing in some utopian vision based on nothing to do with what real children need. You're making gross, sweeping generalising statements and that's what irritates me. My childcare choices are based on what's best for me and my child.

cory · 27/02/2009 09:39

I had lots of opinions about childrearing before I became a parent.

I still have lots of opinions about childrearing.

In a few cases they even overlap.

Quattrocento · 27/02/2009 09:39

"Finally I believe that if you have children it should be because you want to bring them up and see how they develop etc and if you will not take a career break for a year or 18 months because of it damaging your prospects then your priorities are wrong."

I dunno. First the woman with no children tells me how to bring mine up. Then the same woman with (manifestly) no career tells me how to manage my career. Do you have any more gems you'd like to share with me? Would you like to tell me what car I should be driving? Where we should take our holidays? What books to read? What gender AP to employ?

daftpunk · 27/02/2009 09:39

i'm not deluded georgimama..i'm talking about under 5's...a childs personality is being formed in those precious 1st years....by 5 it's all done...sorted...i can see a child at 5 and pretty much know how he/she will be at 16.

londonone · 27/02/2009 09:39

Boffinmum - that wasn't the analogy I was making, I wasn't suggesting that putting babies in nursery is anything like smoking in pregnancy. I was talking about having a general point and not specifically targetting individuals.

I will give an another example.

Lets say I am against smacking and think it is wrong to smack children.

That is not an attack on certain individuals it is ageneral point of view. Other people may smack or not smack that is there choice, doesn't change the fact I think smacking is wrong. (note this is an example)