Yet another article re: why mothers should return to work

[boogiewoogie]

Just snatching a couple of minutes during a coffee break, will come back. What do you think of this?

I'd love to have my kids going to a nursery in a farm - where's one pls???

I used to spend 4 months in our country house, and yes we did see the animals mating and having babies etc - what is wrong with that??? it is weird to want to 'protect' your child from it IMO.
it was the best time of my life and yes we were pretty grubby ...

FM - in France there are state nurseries (with variations in the organisation, several types) and private nurseries (far fewer).

State nurseries (crèches) are means-tested ie you pay according to what you earn on a sliding scale and if you earn above a certain threshold you will not get a place (unless you can bribe someone/know someone with a lot of influence at the Town Hall - not impossible in France). State nurseries are for 3 month old babies to 3 year old toddlers (children are chucked out on their third birthday).

There are more requests for places in state nurseries than there are places. This is widely attributed to the fact that they are the cheapest form of childcare. They are not flexible (set hours, no ill children) and provide a standardised state offer.

There are also private nurseries but not many as they are (a) much more expensive than other childcare options (CMs, nannies) (b) quite grim. The mothers I know who use them only use them as a back-up option - they are not really suitable for all day care (no outside spaces etc).

Nannies are cheap and tax deductible.

Yellowrose

I will link this again (see my link further down the thread) as it another take on the same report

this

yr - the same study has been reported in all the UK media, with varying degrees of alarm - Sun and Telegraph are horrified (of course).

There are lots of studies that show that lots of daycare for under threes is risky. Which of course doesn't mean the risk is always borne out. But it's not one I would be prepared to take based on (a) current evidence (b) the nurseries I have seen (c) the children I know who have attended nurseries for long periods as babies and toddlers

there aren't any i know of pippi, but there may be privately run kindergardens in London(such as Steiner) where the children spend most of their time outside in a garden planting things, playing with natural things, sticks, wood, etc. sounds a bit hippy i know, but sounds lovely, the sort of thing most 3 year old love to do (they won't take children under 3) - they limit nos. too so you don't get 30 children into one room

google Steiner for London, see what you can find

pippi - where abouts in England are you? The one I know is in the Weald of Kent (and there are others).

I agree, mucking about on farms and in fields is one of my best childhood memories.

I think its rubbish. So how do you explain that in Scandinavia where more or less all mums work and children attend nursery from around 12 months, there are certainly less problems with anti-social behaviour than in the UK.

FM - nurseries are NOT the only variable. There are many, many variables in the upbringing of children (as I am sure you know).

Exactly. So what is the fact that there are hardly any SAHMS in Scandinavia and even they tend to like their children to attend nursery tell you. I dont know anyone who would want their 2 year old at home all day in Sweden. Nursery is seen as a public good.

"I'm not sure we communicated this, but the kids who had one to two years of daycare by age 4½?which was typical for our sample?had exactly the level of problem behavior you'd expect for kids of their age. Most people use center care for one or two years, and for those kids we're not seeing anything problematic."

Well that is in the USA, how about here ? It doesn't say anything about UK children.

So can one infer from what the woman says that: by the age of 4.5 years old a child should not have spent more than 1 - 2 years at day care in order not to have "problematic" behaviour ?

So are they saying don't stick a 6 month old in a nursery for 40 hours a week ? Because that is what current UK maternity leave would have most of us do.

The study referenced to is a US study. The staff to child ratio and other factors may well be different in the US compared to the UK. Nurseries in general may be less regulated there too.

Also worth remembering that the US has incredibly short mat leave, so children will be going to nursery at a few weeks old, rather than a few months old in the UK.

I never used a day care nursery so can't really comment on them. I did use a short session (2.5 hours) pre-school nursery which was absolutely fantastic. I would say that going there enhanced my children's lives immeasurably.

Fairy Mum - if you read the thing I posted it says at the very end that in Scandanavia there has in fact been a reversal and most parents now take EXTENDED leave and very few children are left in care below the age of 18 months. Even where they are left in day care, their day care is superior (so say most experts) to what most working mums have access to in the UK.

Uk mat leave is up to 1 year off now YR (assuming you qualify for extended mat leave).

And current French maternity leave (which last for 16 weeks, of which 6 weeks before the birth, although this is changing so that you can keep more for afterwards) has you put a child of ten weeks old in a crèche all day five days a week until it is 3 when it goes to school for up to 10 hours a day, five days a week.

This makes me want to cry for the mothers and babies concerned.

Soapbox - I mentioned this below, but I think there is some confusion on this thread about definitions.

To my mind, a nursery = US daycare for babies and toddlers
A pre-school = what used to be called nursery school when I was little

At least, that was the definition I found used when I was in the UK having my daughter. I don't give a damn about terms, but I think we need to be clear about what we are talking about.

Pre-school (which is in effect what my daughter will be going to in September - école maternelle in French) is a wonderful thing that all children ought to go to, whoever they are looked after by the rest of the day (CM, mother, father, grandparent, nanny...).

Actually I read the second one as saying that the quality of daycare was important too.

My link to it was only to balance out the very stong statemment made about the US study in the article YR linked to.

I agree my link didn't address the UK. However seeing as the UK article (in my view) overstated the negative results from the US study to make them sound more negative than they actually were and gave no qualifiers about quality of care etc then it makes me suspect their reporting of the UK results too.

soap - it may advance an older child to be left in GOOD day care for just a few hours a week, but I can't see how it would advance a baby of 6 months to be left in day care for 40 hours a week. These studies don't support it if they are saying 1 - 2 years up to 4.5 years is ok. They seem to be suggesting long hours in day care is not great for a child under 2.5 - 3.5.

OK

So we have one article explaining the economic risks of women giving up work to care for their families

Other articles explaining that too much daycare for babies and toddlers is harmful to their development

So we have a conflict of interest between a mother's financial security and a child's emotional development.

How should society address this conflict of interest?

i know soap, i took a whole year too in 2004 when ds was born, but then decided to resign after one year altogether to stay home.

you don't get paid for the second 6 months, unless you think £100 a week is ok for a mother looking after an infant. i don't. most employers won't pay after the first 6 months.

go to scandanavia or germany and see how much they get paid when they decide to stay home.

anna - that's easy - STAY AT HOME

I think a lot of mothers who go back to work would also choose to stay home with their children until 18 months if they had the parental leave to do that. It doesn't mean that they are unhappy with the nursery childcare - just that given a bit more help or opportunity they would choose to do it themselves for a bit longer.

However I noticed the comment earlier that it is should be a RIGHT for women to be able to stay home to take care of their children. This really is ridiculous - it reminds me of the 'it's not fair' argument children make all the time.

We all have certain basic human rights but I don't believe that that extands to the right to be a SAHM any more than it extends to being able to live a hassle/stress free life.

YR - that is all good and well. But what about those parents who have to use day nurseries. Not everyone has a free choice as to whether to work or not. Not everyone earns enough to afford a nanny.

There are few options open to these parents and they do the best that they can for their children within the options available to them.

Bashing them over the head with stories of the damage that is done to their children just adds to their stress and guilt, I imagine.

I have some friends with children who went to day care style nurseries and I honestly cannot tell the difference at age 7 between them and the rest of a class of children. In fact the two worst behaved children by a mile in my DD's class (at age 9) were looked after at home by SAHMs.

By extending maternity and paternity leave and giving it more favourable terms, more flexible working hours and more investments into the childcare sector to ensure quality of care. The babies in nurseries 40 hours a week is a daily mail myth. Of course they exist, but its not what parents want. It is what they are sometimes forced into.

Anna what a weird post - Economic stability affects a whole family (including the children) not just the mother.

lazycow - not weird, I am trying to clarify the arguments that go round and round in circles