Is SAHM better than childcare? Does no one worry?

[Zon]

In my home country the key discussion topic when mums talk about childcare is the impact of it. What will it do to your child (emotionally, developmentally etc.) if you are a working parent and your child sees you much less? Many parent find that at least one of the parents should be there for more than half of the week. Somehow it doesn't seem such an issue here. Is this true or have I just missed it? Do you worry about the impact of childcare on your baby/child?

Have you read the thread SetFire? cory mentioned a recent Unicef study in which Swedish children (most of whom are in formal childcare) are happier than those in the UK.

Given that UNICEF have no particular agenda to push, I'm inclined to pay attention to it.

Link

The recent research on trauma, cortisol levels in pregnancy, attachment and separation is worth looking at, if only to look at the cause of problems if they arise - it is about the way childcare happens and the child's sense of security more than anything. I remember in my circle of friends, the only children that were anxious of risk-taking and clingy were the ones that were in childcare at a young age.

There are wider issues as well that I think are important - the main carer should know what they're doing and be confident and I think many get that from being around other parents, sharing and from babies and toddlers watching that interaction. But that's my theory, probably no research on that.

Policymakers frequently overlook the well being of the family unit when they try to push parents into the workplace too soon. This family unit affects the wider community as well. The nuclear family is all well and good on a financial/fiscal level but it leads to community isolation and segregation in my view.

No. We never worry about. We are all absolutely fine with dumping out babies with strangers, and going out to work to earn money for shoes and holidays. Couldn't give a stuff.

Or alternatively we think that being able to pay to keep a roof over your childrens' head and feed them is actually quite important. We may of course be wrong.

Blah blah blah...

^^

agree strix blah blah blah blah

if you have enough time to be agonising about your decisions then you have too much time on your hands.

what a crock, do whats best for your family and stuff what anyone else thinks, the comment about psychopaths is hilarious..

equally hilarious was the comment that working mums make better mothers because they are usually more intelligent!!!! hoots darling, only topped by the comment that children are better off with sahms..

but out of peoples lives and mind your beezwax, all research is bollocks anyway as there is always conflicting evidence for any thoery..

No I don't worry (about that).

Where is your home country OP and why are you asking?

Of course we worry. Oooo, let's all make each other worry some more.

Spenitwisely, maybe It was those children personality rather than them being in childcarenthat made them risk averse. Or maybe they were in a slightly different developmental stage than the other children.

And while I agree that ideally there should be longer parental leave, I also still believe that many problems stem from within the dynamics in the family unit, rather than the time spent by an individual in childcare.

"There is lots of evidence both old and new to say children who are mainly raised by one or more parent or guardian deal with situations alot better than those who spend the majority time in childcare"

what situations would these be?

I can't remember anyone ever saying they had a bad childhood because both their parents (or their only parent) were working. Everything is bad in extremes, of course, but that's true for absent parents as much as for overprotective molly cuddling parents.

As to stats and research, they prove family income is a major factor in child wellbeing. I suspect this will outweigh the minor impact from being in childcare. However, most research in this area has too much of a political agenda and tends to focus on working mothers instead of working parents, so who knows where the truth is.

You're right Franca it could have been any number of things. They were a bit more grown up than the others as well, but very clingy and lacked independence and still do 10 years on. One of the mothers did take a couple of years out for her second because she was sad to miss the first.

Ciske I find this family income issue another tricky one. I find a lot of research seems to use it as a measure of all sorts of things when really it just clouds the issue. 'children that live in poor households have least success at school' - well durr, have you seen the price of property in a good school catchment? For example.

"In childcare" is too emotive a phrase. Lazy father never changed a nappy in his life dumps babies on his wife, thus oursourcing to her. That's child care for example. Or granny looks after the babies. Or we had one daily nanny here for 10 years. Why is that close loving relationship with more continuity than you get in a marriage going to be worse for a child than mother 24/7?

MOther 24/7 tends to ensure the child has only one often malign influence on it.
Family income tends to be a lot less and a massive indicator of how well chidlren do is family income. Perhaps one of the best things you can do for your chidlren is earn £100k and pay day school fees, etc etc.

24/7 mother at home tends to be on the gin, cocaine or prozac as it's an unnatural model and they are rarely happy these drugged up or divorced housewives. They often turn to food for comfort and get fat. It's not a happy model and thankfully it's dying out and children benefit from its demise. Win win all round.

Small children generally prefer being with their parents (and perhaps grandparents) to being with any other carer. And I think it's good for small children to be happy!

Apart from good physical and emotional care, children also benefit hugely from a stimulating environment. Lots of UK studies have shown how children from sensorially-deprived backgrounds are several years behind their more stimulated peers at primary school level. Not all childcare is good childcare and those early years are very important.

Sheesh Xenia there are a fair few sweeping statements in that post! (and I speak as a working mother albeit, not earning 100k)

I agree - being at home wth a parent is childcare and you get good and bad childcare.

Gosh yes,. The Martry Mother who thinks she is the only and best person on the planet to care for little Johnny and never let anyone near him so sacred are her skills often does little Johnny no good at all.in fact she can be very blinkered. She probabnly failed at her career and was never very bright and could not have ever got a job where she'd earn more than the cost of child care so she skulks off home to lord it over a household, making out she is a God of her own domain hiding her inadequacies behind closed doors and inflicting her worst on the child.

Stay home and damage your child, can be our refrain. Get women into board rooms and off their knees scrubbing floors. Everyone will benefit.

Xenia, I used the term "in childcare" because English is not my mother tongue and I couldn't come up with a better term.

Bonsoir, while I agree that small children instinctively prefer to be with their parents, this doesn't mean they are not happy being with other people once they've established a relationship.
A nanny, childminder, key worker at nursery soon become a familiar presence in the life of a child, with whom said child establishes a significant and emotional relationship.

I volunteer in a nursery nowadays, and the children there are happy, normal children. Might they be happier at home with their parents? Possibly, but this doesn't change the fact that they are also happy at nursery.

Xenia,

You do talk some crapola. I have many female friends who were pretty successful (as in lawyers in magic circle firms, advertising execs etc) who chose to give up work to be a SAHM. They had certainly not "failed" in their careers. And, certainly in the case of one of them, she openly admits she does not find childcare fascinating. Yet, she is an unselfish person by nature and is not doing it for herself, but for her children. This does not make her a martyr as she enjoys her life and has never regretted her choices. She has happy, successful children.

There are never going to be many women (or men) in boardrooms and, frankly, the robber barons who currently occupy the boardrooms of public companies are hardly an aspiration for our children.

Success is not only measured by how many £ you have. I think, sometimes, that you are trying to convince yourself of your own life choices in some of your extreme language. If you were totally convinced of your arguments, you may choose a more cautious and less strident tone and respect others in their choices.

Setfire - Lots of people get their childcare for free or heavily subsidised so working makes a difference. I have lots left after childcare

This is a thread saying working mothers are wrong and bad for children so if you start that kind of fire you have to cope with heat the other way - that you damage your children by staying home and if you don't like it either gosh what a lose lose situation.

Xenia,

How about some research based evidence, rather than your own crackpot theories? Clearly money is a factor in how well children do, but far from the only one. I know some real brats and disaffected adults from very wealthy homes (maybe even wealthier than you, sorry Xenia). And, wealth is very well correlated to education, nutrition and all sorts of other positive factors.

The reality is that separating out wealth in children's outcome from other factors is very hard. I would wager that if you were to compare children from households where both parents were not well off but academically very successful versus children of those who were very wealthy but less bright, the children from the former households would have better outcomes. I.E you cannot earn your way to your children's success, you probably are wealthy (on average) from a variety of other factors which are deterministic of your children's success.

Don't confuse cause and effect.

Also spenditwisely i think children in childcare are in general more outgoing and up for anything from my experiences. (work in childcare and have for a few years).

The ones that are the clingiest and cry all the time are the ones in one to one care with mum and no one else. That doesnt mean that happens to all children that have SAHMS but it usually does to the ones that do everything themselves and the child has never had chance to build relationships with anyone else.

Ssssshhhh, people, calm down. Xenia is not 'real' and the OP is gone and anything on screen like this and outside of your real life is not worth the upset.

Re Bowlby: I don;t think the issue with the Bowlby research is that it was old. It was hugely important research and changed the way professional look at a parent/child bond eg it was the beginning of allowing parents to stay in hospital with their sick children where previously they would have had to leave them. The problem is that his research was predominantly (as I understand it, I've seen the original film footage) on children who were taken out of their home setting totally and removed from both parents 24/7 for several weeks AND were not provided with a consistent primary carer instead.

His work is important but mostly not applicable to normal household with working parents who are still around everyday and around 100% of the time at weekends and generally the child will have a person they know and trust as their child carer having had a chance to slowly develop some kind of bond with the carer in stages.

Yes I worry if I use childcare.

Mind you I worry if I don;t use childcare as well, just about differnt things.

I am a stay at home mum, but was working part time. I got made redundant and I have been lucky enough to be able to keep my child in childcare a couple of days a week. I know I am incredibly lucky to be able to do this. I have done this because I think that children actually benefit from being in good quality childcare, it has certainly worked for my wonderfully confident first child, who walks into reception without a backward glance, safe in the knowledge that home would still be there in the background.

My second child, loves going to nursery and would be really upset if she was not allowed to go anymore.

A good balance of both home and childcare is beneficial to all in the long run, well this is what works for us the best. I just would love to be able to get a local job that pays now.