To think toddler group shouldn't be handing out such anti nursery literature?

[Ebb]

I have recently started going to a toddler group, run in a church, which is, in general, lovely but today we were all handing print outs of 'Raising Babies' by Steve Biddulph entitled 'Should under 3's go to nursery?'

It basically suggests that babies under 1 shouldn't go to nursery at all. "Organize for your baby to be with a parent or Grandparent all the time except for occassional breaks - days off or evenings out - when you have a trusted and familiar babysitter."

When your child is one "up to one short day per week eg. 9-3 with a trusted and familiar carer. Ideally 1:1 but in a 1:3 ratio at most."

Further quotes include "Some children are not ready (for nursery) until three or more and group care can be upsetting and harmful for these children." and "*Remember - nurseries have become big business. Many nurseries never engage emotionally with their children."

I am lucky in the fact I take my Dc to work with me but a lot of parents don't have a choice and nurseries are the feasible option. Surely a toddler group shouldn't be putting more pressure and guilt on parents by handing out such cr@p?!

A toddler group shouldn't be doing this, no

Does Biddulph say that women (as opposed to men, or just A. N. Other loving relative) should stay at home? I get rather tired of hearing that those of us who question the, erm, unquestioning acceptance of the daycare agenda are anti-feminist. IME, most of us go to some lengths to ensure that our observations do not injunct women to stay at home.

As to the point about good nursery care - this is what I always come back to. I'm sure good nursery care is absolutely fine. The heart of the issue, for me, is: what proportion of the day care in this (or any other country) is really good? I'm guessing none of us on here would happily send our DCs to a random daycare provider, because we all know that a proportion of them are below-par. It seems to be that these are the ones that are most likely to be used by low-income families who are being bullied back into paid work by the government's anti-SAHP agenda.

It's absolutely legitimate for people to raise these concerns. It does not constitute an attack on women in paid employment, or an insinuation that women should get back into the kitchen.

Just quoting biddulph and saying that nurseries are bad for children is not a sensible or beneficial thing for a toddler group to do. They are not debating the issue at all.

agree policywonk - it's important to seperate out the issues. ie, is childcare the best option for under 3s? If good childcare is ok, then do we actually have good care available? If not, what can be done? If children are best off at home with an adult who has real attachment to them, then how can we make this more possible for more families? Can childcare be made better, or is it fundamentally flawed? If childcare is not ideal, then what can be done to lessen the negatives for the many families who have no other options?

I don't think it is an issue of 'womens place is at home', and I don't think its 'antifeminist' or anti 'women' for Biddulph or others to sugest that institutionalised childcare may not be the ideal for our children.

FWIW, Biddulph does acknowledge in his book that there are other important factors which come into play (apart from the developmental needs of the child) when considering if/how to use childcare. He does acknowledge that parents need to work, parents may need time off to care for other children's or their own needs...but again, these are seperate issues. Whether institutionalised childcare is or is not best for little children needs to be considered as a stand alone issue, before adding in other factors.

Policywonk - Biddulph is inordinately gendered. That's his USP, actually. Mummy is loving and nurturing, Daddy takes over to be son's demi-God at about 7, from what I remember.

I agree some nursery care is shocking, and I wouldn't trust them to care for my dog, never mind my son. But that debate - improving care, ensuring a high floor of acceptable provision - is a long way from arguing that they shouldn't exist. Personally, I wouldn't want my own child in a nursery very young, but he's my pfb. A friend with four kids jokes that her youngest would get more attention!

I just squirm when people get evangelical on choices that don't affect their own kids. It isn't affordable for everyone to be a SAHM, and not everyone has a trusted relative to hand. Questioning practices is a long way from leafletting mothers with one view at a toddler group, IMO.

Those considerations are all theoretical Astrophe. And utterly irrelevant to most parents who need to find a childcare provider for their child. There is no way that you can legislate to have enough good quality childcare providers in any area - in the same way as it appears impossible for a government to provide all our children with access to a decent education.

For most parents who are returning to work, we choose our childcare based on more practical considerations - like how easy it is for you to get to said childcare provider, how many hours they are available to care for your child and whether they have availability. Obviously whether you think they are a good fit with you and your child is a critical factor but it isn't the overriding one - how can it possibly be? A fabulous CM or nursery that's 5 stops on the tube away and closes 1/2 an hour before I can get there is of no use to me.

policywonk - I don't think it's amazing that most people choose to send their child to pre-school for the 15 hours a week the government pays for. Pre-school has been around for donkey's years - I thought it was generally accepted that it was a slow way in to full time school attendance?

Qally - v good post.

there is an inherent prejudice to working mums who use nursery for babies

at the last session of HV baby group they did choosing childcare and 1st aid as final topics

hv started off by saying "anyone returning to work?dont expect this to take long as no one will be going back yet will they...?

LOL oh the joy of raising my hand (with one other) to audible gasps and tut

HV: Ach you mean PT,Yes?
Me:No FT
HV:red faced tut

there is always some precious moments nursery hating zealot waiting to recycle an urban myth of child cruelty.they met a woman on the bus who told thewm they beat dem children dont ya know

they might even spout some biddulph for effect

biddulph who for years espoused benefits of nursery, selling book,doing talks making money and then laterly had a road to damascus like conversion and (you guessed it) started writing and selling books,doing talks (making money) about the evils of nursery

essentially do what you want
suit your individual needs
accept some may likey some may not
live happily with your choices

It's fairly irrelevant if Steve Biddulph is a revolutionary messiah or a cynical misogynist, the key point is that people go to toddlers groups so there little ones can run around and they can hopefully sip a cup of coffee with some like minded parents.

It is mean minded and unchristian for the organisers to be pushing their own preferences down the throats of the attendees and if it were me I would find a new toddler group to go to. Or actually not go at all as both myself and DS found our toddler group sans extremist literature excruciating.

"You had a crap nursery fabsmum. Bad luck for you"

No - this was a well run nursery with a good level of staffing.

The fact remains that in nursery the child/adult ratio is usually 1 to 3. This means that often your child is being cared for by someone who is trying to care for two other children of the same age as well, other children who might be very unsettled or demanding in other ways. This means sometimes that babies and children are not always going to have their emotional (and occasionally physical) needs met.

The point that Sue Gerhardt makes is that the pathways of the brain are still developing in infancy, and that these pathways are shaped by the quality and nature of interaction that the child has with their primary care giver. A baby who is being cared for for most of its waking hours by a carer who is also preoccupied with the needs of other children of the same age, a carer who may be a teenager themselves, and who isn't motivated by love or a figure of secure attachment is going to have a very different experience to a baby who is being cared for by a parent or care giver who is strongly emotionally engaged with them and focused on their needs.

"I just squirm when people get evangelical on choices that don't affect their own kids."

Good grief - are we not allowed to care about the emotional welfare of any other children except our own? If Biddulph et al are right and children who have attended f/t nursery from early on are more prone to aggression and emotional dysfunction then this affects all of us.

there is no credible psychiatric research that nursery is detrimental to mental health.

really you would need a longitudinal study and control group nursery and non nursery comparison

factors impacting upon child/adolescent mental health include

class
genetics/familial history
socio-economic factors

Is there credible psychiatric research showing that separating small babies from their mothers and having them cared for by strangers in little herds is beneficial or harmless to them in the medium or long term?

No? Why are we so confident that it's a good thing then?

LOL your language some what emotive there.me thinky you know you own conclusion as mind made up

winnicott et al said "good enough mun" was enough eg dont beat self in oursuit of eluisive perfection. if the carer's are affirmative,caring and the parents are consistent,attentive,then good attachment will follow

nursery isnt necessarily good/bad
home isnt necessarily good/bad
we can all cite examples of good dreadful events in both settings.

what matters is make your choice wisely.suit your individual needs

but hey as a slammer i would say that,wouldnt i

I think if you are talking about child development, then very little can be considered as a stand alone issue. Because nothing acts alone in development. Can you really consider the needs of the child and the needs of the parent as separate? One surely, surely impacts on the other.

No, nothing about the situation described in the OP is fair or right. No-one running any toddler group should be using their position to push their views of the correct way to parent onto anyone there. We all know what's right for you isn't necessarily right for me. And what I have to do to make ends meet isn't necessarily what you have to do - walk a mile in a mans shoes before you judge him etc. etc.

well obviously as social animals living in urban communities nothing happens alone. but pragmatically parents make range
financial,vocational social choices which impact upon our children.these are taken unilaterally by the adult for the child

no parents sits a baby down and invites its opinion on these issues.as they are unable to articulate or make that choice

so of course we impose our preferences upon our children

Oh shush TFM - that's far too sensible!

Was that to me scottishmummy? My post was in response to Astrophe who I thought was suggesting that one could consider the impact of childcare separately from any other factors which might influence the development of the child (apologies if I have that wrong). Purely in terms of child development, on an individual level, I would question whether that was correct.

just musing on the thread and its developments.global post

Ah

fabsmum - that may have been a well run nursery on paper but if your DC isn't changed all day long then it's crap isn't it? Being part of a national chain is no guarantee of anything - as far as I know, most of them are run as franchises anyway. It's not something that would ever have happened in the nursery my DS used to go to. I would turn up at random times of the day and I never saw any child being ignored or maltreated - the nursery workers all adored the children.

i never knew people had such strong nursery feelings until MN.in RL no one i know discusses it.i have friends SAHM and work and as an ideological thang it doesnt come up

I bet some of them do have the ideological thing going on though scottishmummy. It's just that people are more sensitive in RL than on here. And also, it's easier to view things individually when you know the individuals concerned.

Fabsmum, I am afraid your dd's poor care at nursery has somewhat tainted your view if you have to use terms like "cared for by strangers in little herds..." - oh dear.

As for your "The fact remains that in nursery the child/adult ratio is usually 1 to 3. This means that often your child is being cared for by someone who is trying to care for two other children of the same age as well, other children who might be very unsettled or demanding in other ways. This means sometimes that babies and children are not always going to have their emotional (and occasionally physical) needs met."

It is obvious that children looked after by a parent at home are not always cared for on a one-to-one basis. Surely any parent would have to go on the school run for older siblings or prepare dinner or do housework. No older child had to wait during the nappy change of a younger sibling or be quiet around a sleeping child? Is the fact that their needs were being met in those instances mean they will grow up anxious and/or depressed?

The 1-to-1 ideal from a mother at home is the Sue Gerherdt attachment parenting myth, isn't it? Because those books are designed to be sold to first time mums.

their needs were not being met