Steve Biddulph discusses the results of a childcare "experiment" from Canada.

[Astrophe]

here, in the Sydney Morning Herald

Juuule, really don't agree with "someone who is paid to look after a child is not in a postion to bond too closely with the child and so has to maintain an emotional distance that a parent or relative doesn't."

Again, it's only my own experience and hence biased, but I stayed close to my nanny until the day she died. She didn't maintain emotional distance and neither did I. (And before anyone insinuates, my Mum and I are very, very close and my love for my nanny didn't make me love my Mum less). And DSs key worker loves him to bits, and he loves her so very much. Money can't buy love, but love happens anyway.

i beg your pardon?

But if your nanny had stopped being paid would she still have nannied for you?

i think it's you who needs to revisit primary school maths.

you are being wantonly obtuse and you bloody well know it. is that better for you?

nice

... a handbag

I agree that love happens anyway. But if you are doing something as a job and the pay stops coming, most people won't continue for free. So you would then end up eith two very upset people.

"I don't think it has to be one to one care. I do think that it has to be one or two consistent carers who have the children in their care as a priority and are a focal point for those children. "

Juules, and what do you think nurseries are? A place where random people come and go and the children have no idea who they are?

To be fair, bk, you did say that Sophable was talking bollocks and nonsense.

juuuule, good question. She stopped being paid when I was 14 when she retired. She wrote to me every week for the rest of her life and I visited her - every week when I was still at home, and once I was at Uni I went during uni holidays etc. My letters were more sporadic than hers, which I still feel guilty about. She died while I was still at uni. I think she'd have done the same for me if she had gone to work for another family rather than retiring.

sophable you are using the word "need" a lot there.

As a WOTH mother, what I am hearing is this:

1. Children need X.
2. You are not providing X.
3. You are not meeting your child's needs.

That is the most awful thing for a mother to hear.

And I honestly don't think it is true. I find being with young children 24/7 a sort of torture. A nursery is more expensive than a nanny or a childminder, but we consciously chose a nursery because it provided a quality of care that was clearly far better than the care that could have been provided by the Nannies and Childminders we saw.

I'm sure there are excellent Nannies and childminders out there, but until the Government can provide a free Mary Poppins for each child, one-on-one care is not an option for many families. To therefore tell parents that they are not meeting their child's needs is quite unfair.

Yes either parent can stay at home. But most women partner men who earn more than them and in most families it is the woman who the burden of day-to-day childcare will fall upon. We haven't solved that one, yet, Sophable and it's not accurate to pretend we have.

Depends how long the staff are there for. Are members of staff assigned 3 particular under-3s who they are responsible for or do they interchange children? The children might leave and new ones join. The staff might leave and new ones join.

Thebectster - she was obviously like a second mother to you. However, if she had stopped being paid when you were 18m-2y what would have happened then, do you think?

Juuule, at our nursery DS has key worker who was assigned when he joined and will be his key worker until he leaves. She's been at that nursery for 12 years. If she left nursery and joined another one, DS would follow her if at all possible... She's fab.

With regards to SAHM being more depressed than working mothers, that all depends.

Apparently, another study (sorry) women who work from home are the happiest along with part time workers (up to about 16 hours), followed by SAHM and then finally full-time working mothers. Not surprising that many women who do work full-time want to go part time for a better work life balance.

But, I guarantee, if you look you will find other research which give completely different results. (I might try it later for my own amusement - what a saddo).

And again, it depends on the individual and the children and their wider support network. Just because the mother is happy, doesn't mean the children are or vice versa. As with all things it is a trade-off.

MP, your government is not helping you provide them with the best possible environment.

i too find time alone with ds a kind of torture often.

if your children have been in full time daycare since soon after birth (and this is an extreme, but not uncommon) then the government needs to educate you and more importantly ENABLE you to choose forms of childcare more fitting to their needs early on.

and it is NOT (once again) down to mothers. it is down to parents. it is down to government policy.

i totally agree that childrens' needs being met at the cost of the mothers' sanity/happiness or health is wrong, not least because their need for a sane/happy/healthy mother isn't being met.

Sorry Juuule we keep x-posting!
I know she worked for free for a little while once when Dad was broke, then he paid her backdated as soon as cash came in again. But she was very special, most wouldn't do this. If dad had to find another nanny he'd have moved heaven & earth to find another good one who would have loved me too. My sisters had a lovely nanny too (they're 20 years older than me so we didn't have same one) so dad was clearly good at hiring. I guess partly because he hired his patients in the village (GP), so he knew them (and all their families) very well.

Has anyone actually read the Canadian study?

'How funny that people use particular studies to back up their point but the ones that don't have an oputcome they like are propaganda.'

mrsruffallo, my point is that SB (which is where this thread started - from his writing on a study in Australia), only ever quotes bad news. This does make him a propagandist. I'm not saying the study doesn't exist (even if i think its findings are of limited import to me), but SB qualifies as a bully and of limited use to anyone, because the only work he ever chooses to discuss presents only the bad news.

bossykate rofl at the twins point. i always thought mothers of more than 1 under the age of 5 are just reprehensible!!! how could they?

yes, Astrophe posted a link last night, on this thread

wtss, have you read any of Biddulph's books? he is pretty balanced about different countires and systems,ime.

morningpaper - the thing is, there is a difference between "I don't believe this is true" and "anyone else who says it is true is a liar, a propagandist, a scare-monger and a bully who is trying to make other people feel bad and only in it for the money, and it isn't fair and I don't want to hear it, therefor no-one else should have the chance to hear it either."

HC i really wouldn't post with such vehemence had i not bored and irritated myself silly with at least one of the Bidd's books.