Child guru says nurseries harm small children

[flashingnose]

oh dear

yes, bloody lazy.

I know a nanny who worked for a SAHM - the nanny did everything, including night feeds whilst on holiday with the family -school run, etc., etc.
She left when heavily pregnant and the family really gave her a guilt trip - wanted her to put own baby into nursery so she could come back to look after their kids.
Lazy cow, that woman. All she could do was make herself fragrant and spend her dh's money.

one of my nanny friends worked for a SAMH who spent her life playing tennis, being on committee's and not much else.

agree it's totally lazy and a big cop out.

not so much a stay-at-home-mum, more a stay-at-home-person.

SAHM even!

geekgirl I was kind of hoping ppl would come up wtih stories to dispel the "lazy" idea in my head!

In terms of laziness, i guess it depends on how much the nanny or au pair does. If they are employed full time and look after your kids all day, then yes, and i wouldn't understand the point of being a mum (unemployed) if that were the case! But if, like I would, they're employed to give you a well earned break now & then that's completely fair enough!

Hi. I didn't read the article myself but have read a good selection of the threads above and get the idea! I think there is no right or wrong involved here. Yes, this guy does seem to be making sahm's feel guilty - but it's possibly not intended. I am one of those unfortunates who suddenly found herself a single mum with 17month and 10wk old daughters and a mortgage to pay. I was "forced" to go back to work in order to pay the bills and never gave a thought to going onto benefits in order to look after the kids. Well, that's because the CAB told me I wouldn't get anything due to equity in the house. Ha ha - like that's real money! NOT. Anyway, here I am nearly 6 years down the line with DD1 at school and DD2 starting in September. Last year I found myself out of work and took the opportunity to be a SAHM, on (albeit limited) benefits. I've trained to be a childminder in the meantime as well. I now find I'm caught in the terrible position where if I earn more than £76 a week I lose benefits which means I lose mortgage assistance which means I'd lose the house because I couldn't find the money. So, yet again I am being forced to find a full time job in order to pay the mortgage - which means I've got to find childcare. So, up until June last year my kids were in Nursery, with grandparents and with a childminder. All I'd say is that they are smashing girls - very level headed and I HATE THE FACT that I missed out on being a day to day significant part of that. Having been given the "opportunity" to become more significant over the last 9 months, I'm now going to lose it again. I know they are trying to improve childcare and push mums back to work, but we should be allowed to do what WE consider to be best for all involved - parents and child alike WITHOUT being made to feel guilty about the decision we've made and without articles like this which put the fear of god in some of us about the quality of child care out there. I'd like to think that because I've been a full time working mum up until now, that I am a very understanding and sympathetic childminder.

Lulabye, what a sad story.

Just out of curiosity, what would happen if you decided to sell your house? Is that why you wouldn't get benefits, because of the possible money in it? Did you ever consider selling the house and living as long as you could on that money, and would you then be able to claim benefits once that ran out? I've no idea how these things work, it was just the first thing that occurred to me.
I'm sort of on the other side of things in terms of being a single mum - I have been a SAHM all 2ys6mnths of dd's life, and was always under the impression I didn't actually have the option of going to work because it wouldn't be worth it. (Have since been told by job centre that it would now be worth it cos of tax credits etc, but am very very cautious about believing them; i've heard horror stories). Always been strangely glad that that was the case, cos it's meant i haven't had to feel guilty about being society's lowlife, seeing as I didn't have a choice! Plus, I'd much rather be trapped as a SAHM than trapped having to go back to work, that's just me... Wld love to work part time now though!

Well I retreated from this thread with the hijacking of the debate by the God Squad-am glad we are back on the original article-Guardian article this week by SB similar to original Times one has prompted me to look at some of the original data-tfor those interested-there is a lot he doesn't emphasise
for example in the NICHD US study (where maternity benefits are laughable-despite the President being a supposed Christian-sorry couldn't resist) the majority of children in the study entered childcare before the age of four months-not the case in the UK.
One of their publications on infant mother attachment found no difference in this between those infants with extensive childcare and those with no childcare. Another showed no difference in cognitive and language development.
The EPPE study-I quote showed...
High levels of ?group care? before the age of three
(and particularly before the age of two) were
associated with higher levels of anti-social
behaviour at age 3. This effect was largely
restricted to children attending Local Authority and
Private Day nurseries where substantial numbers
of children attended from infancy onwards. When
children who show anti-social behaviour, at age 3,
attend a high quality setting between the ages of 3
and 5 years, their level of anti-social behaviour
decreased. Children with high levels of group care
before the age of three, by contrast, showed better
cognitive attainment.
As for the Penelope Leach study-they have this statement on their website
FCCC statement
The team is undertaking a wide ranging study into the influence of different
forms of childcare, including mothers, fathers, and other carers, on children
up to four years 3 months of age.
Data from this study are not yet published. Some of the findings are currently
under review and further analyses are being undertaken by the team. As they
are finalised, data are being submitted for peer review. Only after that will
they be released to the public.
No recommendations about child care are made by the research team and we
certainly do not advocate that all children in the early years of life must be
cared for fulltime by their mothers, nor indeed that one form of child care is
always preferable to another. However it is the view of the team that both
parental choice of care and the quality of care are most important.
Penelope Leach gave a presentation to the National Childminders Association
conference about child care up to 18 months of age on 3 October 2005, which
made reference to some aspects of the above mentioned unpublished
research. The contents of Dr Leach?s talk have been widely misinterpreted by
the media.
www.familieschildrenchildcare.org

I could go on but in conclusion from the NICHD
...The findings from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care demonstrate that family characteristics and the quality of parenting are related to the cognitive, language, and socioemotional development of young children throughout the preschool years, regardless of the number of hours they spend in child care over the early years, the quality of their child care, or the type of child care ....
The debate should go on-our children are the most important thing in our lives. However let us not damn working mothers until all the data is available.

Interesting stuff, Lady G, but not the kind of thing that will sell books. I've done a study in a completely different area and the results show no difference between the two groups we studied. It's hard work trying to get it published, who wants to fill their pages with something that says "nothing new"?

There'll be some interview or another on Radio 4 in a few minutes also about SAHMdom.

I think this thread has meandered nicely: SB, religion, Jools Oliver, SAHM with nannies.

Lulabye, I think your post perfectly encapsulates what the problem is that these studies are trying to sort out. They are carried out in order to change policy towards facilitating a more positive work/life balance. The media always distort it to being 'anti-working mothers' because it's institutionally misogynous and the knee jerk reaction is always to denigrate women and hopefully blame feminism rather than successive patriarchal governments, the Thatcher years being the worst.

interesting MT. agree with that.

Would love to hear about Kristina7's study. Like so many others, I was freaked out by the news: yet another thing to feel guilty about with a 2.4 boy in f/t nursery. He loves it, the kids are not agressive and I want to work (whisper it). I could not be a f/t mother and stay sane. But why is it always about the mothers? No one EVER comments on the fact that my husband has 'gone back to work'.

So agree. I had a go at DH yesterday because although I will be earning more than him when I go back to work after this new baby (which I ahven't had yet - I'm still at work), I'm the one doping all the thinking about childcare arrangements. He says I'm just better at it. He's pretty non-sexist and non-patriarchal but even he assumes I'll be in charge of childcare coem what may.

Patkica - my study is in a different area entirely (a specific eye condition of the very elderly), sorry if I gave the impression I knew more about childcare than reading books and newspapers. It was a well conducted study, in seven countries in Europe etc but the results aren't that amazing, so it's frustrating as after 5 years it would have been nice to ahve something "groundbreaking".

Oh yes, no one has ever asked me either why my husband went back to work after two weeks of holiday. But, they certainly frown that I returned after 3 months of maternity leave.

My DH works away Mon. - Thurs. (usually), so as it turns out I do generally make the childcare decisions. But, that isn't really a complaint. I'm the one who comes home every night and so I'm the one who has to play boss to the nanny. So it seems only right that I have the decison power as well (within reason of course).

Thanks Kristina7. I should have seen that, but I take the point. My main problem with all of this is that no one is presenting real alternatives. We kill ourslves to work out what we think is best for our kids, within reason, and then spend half our lives feeling guilty and then we get told to feel guilty again. And it is always about women. ST tried to include fathers in his study, but all know that it's really mothers who are being blamed. And this on top of the fact - proved time and time again - that women do the lion's share of everything to do with children and homes. I've found that this always happens, no matter how modern and egalitarian the father is.

In fairness to my dh there are exceptions, Patkica.
I do a weekly commute (because we have academic jobs in different cities) so I'm away for 3-4 days most weeks, so he does all the childcare during that time and almost all the nursery dropoffs/pickups the rest of the time. I try to do half of everything else but don't manage it!
I have several friends who have a similarly equal setup. I know we are still in a tiny minority but I really believe things are changing compared with the previous generation (my parents both worked but my mum did all the cooking, childcare and household stuff!) for some of us anyway.....

Fair enough: my husband is really good too and if we're both around we do half and half. I'm an academic too, though don't need to commute, but the 'flexiblity' of my job means that it's me who normally has to compromise as DH works in the private sector. I wonder how common it is for the woman's job to be the first to be compromised when problems come up. Pretty usual I'd have thought. But what I was really getting here is that even though some partners are great, it's almost always what the mothers do which seems to be commented on the most. I find it extremely unlikley that fathers have these kinds of conversations for example, or that they feel the need to tell each other proudly how great their partners are becuase they do half the work. It doesn't seem to work that way and that annoys me. If women do hae partners who do their fair share, they are seen to be very lucky rather than the norm.

Totally, totally agree Patkica.
People are always saying how amazing my dh is for being equally competent to me at childcare.... No-one ever says how amazing I am for being equally competent at going to work! When I pointed this out to my mother she accused me of not appreciating my dh.... which was not fair, as I do appreciate him, I just think it's a teensy bit insulting to men to behave as if it's some kind of a miracle when they change a nappy!
Am quite good at not feeling guilty though - baby is happy, dh is happy, so it would take more than some article by a 'guru' or misrepresented research to make me question that.
And yes, it has been very depressing the way the terms of the debate have been all about women's choices. Daft, too, as it doesn't represent reality - you make these decisions as a couple.

Kathy1972, how many hours would you estimate you spend with your kids each week? How old is your child?

By the way, I am NOT trying to make a point about you working too much AT ALL! Do not worry! It's simply that Ihave always struggled to make myself go to work since I had DS, would rather be with him and feel guilty when I'm not.

I'm just interested to know what proportion of the week you'd spend with your child because I can hopefully start to learn not to feel guilty - I mean, your family and child are obviously happy with the arrangements you have and are not suffering at all!

In my case, DS is in nursery from about 8.30 to 4 so an hour every weekday morning and then 3 hours in the afternoons. And all weekend. It doesn't sound like much, but it is really, especially as I often keep him home for a day so we can have some time together. I'm lucky because he really loves nursery and even asks to go at the weekends. I too feel guilty at times, but whatever arrangement I would make in an ideal would always involve nursery as he loves it and I do think it's great for children to socialise and to learn to share with others. I would only feel really, really guilty if I thought the nursery wasn't up to scratch and if he was clearly unhappy. I have friends who don't have paid jobs and they feel guilty about not working. You can't win and again, it's generally the women who sturggle with these feelings, not the fathers whose return to work is seen as normal.

Thanks Patk! I still struggle with guilt about working and my DS will be going to school this year!!!

patkica

my dh is also an academic and the fact that his is the more flexible job means that he has in the past had to pick up more of the childcare during the week. the fact is, as an academic, he has way more flexibility than i do - it's not a sexist statement, it's simply the truth in our case. our household works on the basis that each partner contributes what the can - in my case it is more money, in his case more time - i wish the positions were reversed, but there you have it.

My mum tells me she still feels guilty about putting us into daycare when were 18 months old and that was 36 years ago! I tell her to get over it because we're just fine, but then I find myself doing the same thing and feeling guilty. It's bloody ridiculous. Chances are that, like my mum, we'll do all sorts of other things to screw them up anyway.

Sorry I didn't get back to your q earlier, Sparklemagic - been doing an open day/attending a seminar.
DD is 8 months.
It averages out at 42 hours a week that I spend with her, including daytime naps but not including night-times.
Interesting exercise - what struck me was that there is not that much difference between the times when I am working from home and those when I am away (12 hours a week difference), because she's at nursery most of the day anyway. I'm not sure I'm much worse off than wohms who commute every day (I have a friend in a similar situ whose solution is to commute 2 hours each way daily). Also the flexibility's great if she's ill. Naturally I spend a couple of hours a day when I'm at work bothering colleagues and students with photos of my dd and forcing them to agree about how gorgeous she is. I tend to work long hours those days so I am not wasting time when I could be with my family, which means I then don't feel guilty about working shorter days when I'm with her.
One of my colleagues, a prof who has 3 children of 20-ish inspired me to think it was possible - she did a similar thing when hers were all under 5, and when you ask around it turns out there are an awful lot of people who do something similar and I have not yet met anyone who hated it. So I thought I'd give it a go and see how it turned out and then only rethink if it was clearly not working.
Of course I would like to spend more hours with my dd, but then, I would also like to spend more hours working (sad I know!), more hours sailing and more hours with DH.
It might all fall apart when she reaches 10 months though and starts to be more aware of who is around - easy to say goodbye to a smiling baby but the guilt might kick in if she was screaming.