Child guru says nurseries harm small children

[flashingnose]

oh dear

I wouldn't be surprised to see a report saying that Mum is more important than Dad if choosing which parent should stay at home. I think most women earm less than their male partners which is probably one of the reasons mum's tend to be the ones to stay at home.

I also think financial security is something that is important for children and family and also with the divorce rate as high as it is I think it is resonsible of women to maintain their earning potential should they be in the group of women who find themselves divorced (2 out of 5 marriages end in divorce). I think this is where Part time work is great keeping your skills up to date should you ever need to increase your hours.

Norway sounds an interesting place to live. What other benifits do you get living there? NHS? Also whatever happened to this country's North Sea Oil revenue?

Well, Gordon Browns recent tax increase led to some of the majors reducing their work in the North Sea. A move that was not very popular in Scotland, for obvious reasons. Norway supports itself by only hiring Norwegian companies to service their oil industry. So they are funding their own economy with their oil industry. I expect the taxes on industry are probably very high as well.

If the UK did that, I think we see nothing more than back side of the indepent oil companies who can go drill elsewhere for less hassle and more profit.

No one mentions differences between sons and daughters but I have read, and it makes a lot of sense, of studies where boys need longer at home with maternal care than girls. That is where Stephen Biddulph's interest lies.

It is the long term studies that show the biggest difference. Boys do less well in exams at 16/18 after early nursery care. Girls don't show that drop.

Parents need to make the choice that fits with their personalities and lifestyle but the government can help make it possible to parents to stay at home without facing bankrupcy. What, for example, are we doing with a basic tax credit of £5,000 (ish) for a working father? How does that help with the price of bread?

And we should be aware that house prices rise because we are willing to pay more. When double incomes became common house prices shot up. The choice to go out to work has reduced the possibility for the less well paid to stay at home. If children, sons, suffer from this we should give support where it is needed.

Boys do less well in exams at 16/18 after early nursery care. Girls don't show that drop.

Really? I'd be interested to get a reference for this study.

I haven't read all of this thread. But have any children who go to nursery f/t before they are three actually grown up yet to be assessed as to whether they are affected. 18 years ago I did a brief stint as a Mothers Help, and nobody in the rather posh area I was located in sent their children to nursery. They all had au pairs/mothers helps. The children only went to nursery after about 4. There were not the rules & regs that there are now either. Did pre pre-school nurseries exist then... I can see the books now in 15 years....'I went to nursery' - the story of a woman obsessed by cleaning after her parents cruelly abandoned her to Tippytoes nursery before the age of three. Right up there with a child called it.

UCM - that's something I questioned too earlier in the thread somewhere. SB started writing this book 5 years ago, so he's either using old data and nurseries 18 years ago are different to those today, or else he's speculating on what might happend in the future, making inferences based on the "well, it makes sense, innit?" argument.

I think this is getting a bit confused now
SB isn't saying anything about the drop at 16/18 or AFAIK anything about educational achievement directly.

"He argues that such children may have problems developing close relationships later." That's the only bit directly from the article. Define "problems", "close relationships" and "later". The other stuff was from others who posted here and said they'd read him.

we had dd in a nursery from 4 months (full time) and looking back, I think it was the wrong decision. If I could have done it all again, I would have opted for a nanny. Given how much nurseries cost in London and how many days work I had to miss for contagious but not very ill making conditions (such as conjunctivitis, chicken pox etc.), it probably would have made money sense to have a nanny aswell.

I think it is an assumption to assume that women earn less than man. A lot of women do after they have children because they go part-time but before children nearly all the women I knew earned more than their husbands and this was a major factor in them returning to work after children. Not all men are in higher paid jobs but in my experience nearly all of the women I know made sacrafices to earn less whether through working part-time, not taking a promotion or giving up work and therefore it really annoys me when I read all these surveys. Most women feel their children are the most important thing to them. Some don't whether they work or not. Even SAHM who sometimes are forced into the situation because of sheer economics. In many cases it is the bloke that backs the woman to work because their standard of living will go down and that is one of the reasons why they support their spouse's choice. These surveys do not help the situation for many women. In the same way as all other surveys that are carried out such as low birth weight babies having problems later on. The press need news and that is why they print them. I would like to see a survey showing how much additional stress is caused to people by reading surveys. Please just ignore them. It is probably too late to make changes and don't get too smug becuase there will be another survey tomorrow showing the damage you are doing. I suggest not reading newspapers or listening to the news as often will stop most people feeling any stress.

Women on average earn less than men.

Not all women do. I earn more than DP but I will be the one going PT. Statistically it is mainly women who stay at home with children which is why these reports are directed more at us.

Right, I am going to ignore this thread now cos it's not doing me any good. It's good to know I am not alone and I appreciate the sahp for expressing their view even if I don' share them. In RL I find people a lot more guarded in what they say.

Issymum - It's a principle - you have to weigh the situation and obviously yours is very different from normal.

Blueshoes - its not always going to work exactly, and it does involve sacrifice.

just wanted to say I agree with spidermama 100% - well said!

I am trying to rise to the challenge of naming my sources on long term effects of early care, particularly on boys. The book I got it from is "Who needs Parents" by Patricia Morgan 1996 which I found in an Oxfam shop and read about 4 years ago when I was grappling with the problem. Unfortunately it is full of references and it will take me a long time to find the most relevant. I recommend the book though. She makes the point that high quality childcare requires high level training and therefore high salaries, setting a cost which for most people and indeed governments is unrealistic. I think S.B. comments that the majority of childcare is substandard and that is the problem. Government ministers like to talk about the ideal that they are working towards. Meanwhile mothers have to put their children in the best they can find and hope it will do.
Much of her data seems to come from America if that makes a difference.

Well my two (3.7 and 1.10) have experienced both -i.e. Day Nursery for 3 long days per week, and now nurtured by a doting SAHM ...

I stopped work because of a niggling doubt that nursery care wasn't the best environment for dd in particular (the 3.7 yr old), but also because no longer found work stimulating (let's be honest!)...

On my bad days I wonder if being at home with their mum is all it's cut out to be - i.e. whilst I am barking irritably at them to get off my back and leave me along to do the washing / cooking / cleaning...and making excuses re. why I don't want to play princesses (sometimes think 'shoot me now' - I can't do another pretend tea party or Sleeping Beauty re-enaction). Am I providing them with a 'quality' experience?

Having been on both sides of the fence I can't honestly say whether I think that nursery care or being full time at home with mum is best for my children..so I'm pretty sure that Steve Biddulph can't be certain either!

onesmallkayak wrote "Parents need to make the choice that fits with their personalities and lifestyle but the government can help make it possible to parents to stay at home without facing bankrupcy. What, for example, are we doing with a basic tax credit of £5,000 (ish) for a working father? How does that help with the price of bread? "

there are few people who have a real choice. I find myself compelled in issues such as these to point this out. Whether you had a successful career but just can't afford to go back, or whether you can't afford to enter the workplace becuase of childcare, maybe your financial situation is such it dictates that you must go back 24 hours after giving birth.

theres no real choice in there.

i am very angry over the assertion that my main function as god would like it to be is a homemaker and mother.

somepeople just arn't built that way i find it highly, highly offensive both personally and with regards to my faith.

never mind the huge gaping argument that the emporer augustus just got a few gospels together - the ones he fancies for political and monetary gain and named "christianity" as the new way to go. nevermind that we are now in an age where women are recognised as being as capable as men - and visa versa that men are as capable as women.

may i remind you that there was a golden age - in AMERICA that advertising board of a 1950's family mother baking apple pie and everyone has white teeth.

you know what its all cock. big hairy cock. becuase poor people have always worked. worked and gone to church, and done the family too. children at 6 years old worked. boys were men at 13.

the book you call the bible i call a good guideline for morality. knowing full well where it came from and not ignoring it becuase i attend church. i attend a catholic church knowing full well the bastard things they have done throughout history. i do it becuase i find it the best way to execute my faith.

its not complicated you see to God - and i 'm not his personal spokes person. but jesus was a hippie - "be nice man, people will be nice back...if your nice back..we all become nice people man and the world will be better ..peace out"

thats the general message. its not complicated one bit - its not. you can be a good person and not believe in god ( holy shit - shock horror)

i cannot, i will not i refuse absolute to believe that the god who i call mine and trust in absolutley wants me to stay at home dying of depression and being resentful of my children. i could bake them a cake and have white teeth, they would be gritted and i would be bitter.

the lord does not want me to bring up my daughter to be dutiful to fuck all. if she bakes a cake i will disown her.

IF however she is highly educated and earns a shit load of money and decided ( as she could very well do becuase she has money) to stay at home, and she enjoyed it - then good for her.

i will have brought her up to be capable enough to earn enough money to have that decision.

if she stayed at home and baked a fkcing cake becuase she thought it her duty to the lord. i swear i would spend eternity in hell cos i would slit my own wrists for a piss poor job.

the bible was written by men. in a time when men ruled. in a time much much different from today where their strength = their power - whether that was in battle or through working for food. they had the power to feed, to make laws, and to be educated and therefore to write. and re -write and make shit up like mary magdelen was a whore - she wasn't a whore we all know that - but 20 years ago we didn't. the church and religeon are an institution of power. this like any other institution weilding power does it for its own benefit. the benefit now being " holy shit its all falling apart, people are disproving ..err.. well most things and erm...all we can do is maintain the status quo - hold firm, don't budge - we are solid"

if god wanted only this - ad i say that knowing its loaded - from me then he shouldnt have created me with a thirst for knowledge, intellect, and little maternal feelings.

he should have had me born in a flowery laura shley dress baking a fking pie.

ps. all child gurus are full of sh*t

pps. also took offence at the insunuation made about those stay at home parent who create the asbokids.

but cant be arsed

constantine not augustus. - should have got that it was my dads middle name ( my grandma was a nutter)

hear hear!

Message withdrawn

Beautiful, so glad I read that article now. Apparently my DP and I are causing untold damage to DS because we cant afford to live on just one income and pay all our bills and essentials plus have some semblance of a life. Of course I'd prefer to look after my son myself but IRL how many people are lucky enough to be in that situation and not suffer financial fallout as a result? I want DS to go to a good school and have a secure future so we both work to save for this. Am a mix between and after seeing that article.

Dublindee, don't be .
There is no research that proves that stuff.
All the research so far has done (and some people would doubt that it has even done that) is to suggest that there are slight average differences between nursery -cared-for children and those with SAHPs.
But does the research prove that the nursery caused the differences?
Of course not.
To do that you would have to be absolutely sure that there were no relevant differences between the two groups in the first place.
How would you do that? Well, a random and controlled trial, for a start. You would have to take a group of children and randomly assign some of them to go to nursery and some to stay at home. But you can't do that, for ethical reasons and because no-one would volunteer for the study! (Plus, then you would be forcing some people into a choice they didn't like, which would introduce another factor into the equation.)
As it is, no-one has yet shown that there is not some other reason that the children who happen to go to nursery happen to turn out differently. And IMO it is highly likely that there are already some subtle differences between the two groups. Some of the differences might turn out to be detectable if you look hard enough (eg. there might be higher levels of PND in one group) but anything less dramatic could well be missed. And we are talking about quite minor differences between levels of aggression etc in nursery educated kids, not huge ones, so whatever is going on here is definitely something quite subtle.
It doesn't take research to feel sure that horrible, neglectful childcare will be bad for babies, but all childcare? I've yet to see the evidence....

To those who believe a woman should serve a man only, imagine your own daughters in 20 years time living with controlling thug - would you change your mind then? Would you wish you had taught her to say no to that? Would you wish you had given her the gift of a decent education and the job to be able to get out of that situation? Not all men are decent and loving - don't kid your daughters into believing that and give them the back up should they require it. Let's hope they all meet lovely men or like my own sister they may be gay. Who would look after her then. I know you may not believe in that either if you are deeply religious but children are only on loan to you while they are young. Our job is to make them capable of looking after themselves when they are adult - living your life completely according to the doctrines of a book does not take into account changes thrown at our children in later life.

As an only child who was brought up by a stay at home Mum and who grew up lonely and shy, my DD was enrolled at a nursery when I was 3 months pregnant. She started at 9 months old when I went back to work and is the happiest and most confident I have ever seen her. I have balance back in my life and am the happiest I have been in months too. I adore my DD but felt claustrophobic stuck at home. At home I would make her fit into my life, at nursery she has great care, a lot of attention and is developed. Good behaviour is positively encouraged at nursery and the babies and childern I see are 'normal', sweet and well adjusted. These scaremongers are simply trying to make a name for themselves and should go stick their heads where the sun don't shine! Maybe in the Nappy Wrapper?