Would anyone be interested in calmly discussing this Times articles with me please?

[Sycamoretree]

Article from Times 2 today.

here

Have read with interest as DH is currently SAHD due to redunancy over a year ago, so my youngest, (DS) has only been cared for at home with a parent. He is 20 months old.

My DD is at pre-school and starts reception in Sept. She had a nanny for the first couple of years until DH got made redundant.

DH is trying hard to get back into full time work and nursery was/is something we are considering. We certainly could no longer afford a nanny for one on one childcare.

I'm particularly interested in anyone who can confidently refute this quote from Steve Biddulph:

"quality nursery care for young children doesn't exist. It is a fantasy of the glossy magazines."

On the one hand I am furious that such an article gets printed as so many of us are between a rock and hard place when it comes to just surviving, and nurseries are often the only solution.

On the other hand, if any of this is actually true, then as a society, we need to start having this debate/conversation - surely?

Mine have been in a nice nursery that has no staff turnover at all - they have had the same carer for 3 years straight, who's been there for 20 years. It's a nice happy place, where they do lots of fun activities, and can socialise or not at their own pace. It's a workplace nursery so very inexpensive too.

I do think that, had it been right for me to be a sahm, then the children would have preferred that- nothing beats mummy after all. But deveopmentally they're fine, and my relationship with them is as snuggly as it should be.

he used to be an advocate of nursery,sold books etc espousing nursery benefits.When ya guessed it - denounced nursery sold even more books.did an ideological u turn.very financially lucrative

all lapped up by quasi-intellectuals and chat shows

really scottish mummy, I would love to read one of those! to compare! lol

sorry read the aritcle, cant be arsed to read the thread

ds1 has been full time at nursery from 7m to 2 and a half yrs, he is now 3 days a week. As far as I am concerned, nursery offers things i cant (as well as enabling me to work) - great social experiences, exciting and interesting topics (it is on a farm with a forest school) and he IS well and truely loved and loves it. I am sure he is a better little boy because of it

Thats all i have to say

I am cold and agressive and was worried that my children being at home with me would exacerbate my icy nature and bring it to the fore in my trainee sociopaths.

Who would have thought that farming them out would produce the same result....

motherducky, I too don't see an issue with babyrooms that provide quality care. I spent hours sitting in my ds' nursery's baby room over an 8-week settling in period. Sat on the carpet with the carers, warts and all for me to see. Quite restful, really. Did not see any babies crying in the corner.

Australian psychologist Steve Biddulph takes a radically different view. The author of Raising Babies: Should Under 3s Go To Nursery?, he had a complete reversal in his views on early childhood education. He used to advocate the use of daycares.link and lots more stuff just google him

this man is milking and preying upon fears.whipping up anxieties selling books.because of course he has the definitive answer just give him £20 and he will gladly tell you

That's where the thread started though, pretty much, blueshoes - not with people disputing that some nurseries give great care (will admit thread went pear-shaped for a while back there due to eccentric posting), but with a discussion of what ought to be done about the nurseries that don't provide great care. Cos those are the ones most likely to be used by the parents with the least choice.

Yes PW, exactly. I am none the wiser after this thread but I would have been stupid to have expected to be. There seems to be a paralysis, constant looping or maddening inertia across the whole debate - which is why we get sucked into side issues of whether there should even be a need for nursery care in the first place - (that perhaps instead all of us should stay home for first 5 years).

I come back constantly in my mind to the rock and hard place and it is not a pleasant feeling. Though I'm encouraged by some of the posters and their positive experiences of nursery care.

To go back to the article linked to, isn't part of the issue that boys under the age of 3 are apparently more likely to suffer from separation anxiety than girls, and this is part of the reason why nursery is more difficult for them...

I haven't read the whole thread but I thought I would just offer my own experiences of nurseries. My daughter has been in three since she was seven months old. She appears to be absolutely fine. She is now four and has made lots of friends. She can be tearful some mornings when I drop her off but she almost always wants to stay and play when I come to pick her up.

I am sure it is right that nurseries wouldn't be right for some children. They would be better off with a child minder or a parent at home. BUT I think it is absolute total utter bollox to say that a 'good' nursery is a 'fantasy'.

I've had experience of three nurseries that were and hopefully still are 'good'. i have no regrets at all about my child care choices.

no one else can tell you what is right for your child/your circumstance

certainly they can impart preference,anecdotal knowledge,their experience BUT it is a deeply personal decision

justifiable only to yourself,DP and child if they ever ask "mummy why did you.....?"

no amount of quasi-research or bleating on about slamming and missing precious moments will ever convince me i did the the wrong thing

bottom line make your own mind up

live comfortably with your choices

I've worked full time since my son was 7.5 months. I agonised a bit before I went back to work, after I encountered some of the "nurseries are awful for boys" literature.

I am a bit of a feminist; I earn a lot more than my husband and we agreed before we married that if we managed to have kid/s I would go on working and he would do childcare. However, he would be bored at home full time, as quite possibly I would be, so we have agreed to put our son in half time nursery, though for relatively short days.

I think temperament comes into it a lot, probably more than the sex of the child. Our little boy is extremely sociable, which has been commented upon by a large number of acquaintances in the village where we live. We go to church and he zooms around, made eye contact with adults from a very young age, recognised people outside the family from a very young age, smiles very readily, approaches other small children and tries to greet them. When I have walked through the church with him, he has been observed to smile, wave and reach out to each person he passes over my shoulder.

At nursery he has been noted to settle in very quickly, to have been quick to start to share toys (another child looking with him at the starter book he is interested in) and he seems to respond very positively to his keyworker.

It has been commented that he has been seen playing peek-a-boo, gently, with the younger babies.

This is a child aged 12 months.

I do not think he is either more aggressive or sad and compliant. Neither do I think he is erm fermenting such qualities for future life.

In a different situation, I might have considered being a SAHM. It has its appeal, and I enjoyed the 8 months I spent at home more than I thought I would!

However, my experience suggests that being at (a rather good and not-for-profit) nursery part-time is a quite reasonable option for a very sociable little boy, even under 12 months.

I would add that all this treat-boys-differently stuff comes over as just a new variant on the women's-place-is-in-the-home jag. It used to be "Women can't do work/study/professions as well as men". Now, it's
"Women are doing better at work/study/professions.
So men/boys are doing worse.
So of course it's the fault of their mothers who are selfishly putting their careers above the needs of their sons, which are greater than those of their daughters, which is of course why boys are doing so badly".

Huh huh and treble huh.

Oh and I won't say what I do but I - have to go baby crying

well I think this country's systems for protecting babies in the care of nurseries are pretty woeful

the nursery dd went to as a baby caused her to be hospitalised several times for giving her something she was allergic to and the same chain (but different nursery) ended up causing the death of another baby from the same thing.

What happened to them? Oh they are still running and making a profit.

Just like the rail companies who cause death by shoddy work, in this country, you can kill or cause injury by negligence and still get away with it.

I think Ofsted is toothless, totally, and tbh, I'm not sure anyone really ensures that children, especially babies, in nurseries are actually being looked after adequately (though do think this has improved since several high profile cases, though probably from their fear of getting caught out).

I'm sure there are some great nurseries out there but it does concern me that they are some awful ones that may be getting away with it and we'd be none the wiser about them.

(ps this happened before the corporate manslaughter bill was enacted!)

..and most children are hurt by their parents sadly. Most dangerous place to be is with your mother at home.

But aside from risks of danger, as chatn says there is a lot of sexism in this. In 1984 when we had our first of 5 (I have always worked full time and earned a lot more than their ather) as we knew we wanted quite a few it was cheaper to get someone into our house to look after them as that's 3 under 5 places for the cost of one daily nanny compared with 3 plces at nursery. I did also want them in their own house and I want the control over that, as employer of the person who worked for us in our house and I do think on balance if you can afford it that's better but not so much better we should ban nursery care. It's also easier if the child is sick and you have to work

Soph, did Biddulph do his research on nurseries in Denmark? Have the results been advertised in Denmark? Is there the same angst between parents to use nurseries? Why isn't this angst about nurseries not perceived/discussed/shared here in Italy, for instance?

Need to go and take dd to scuola materna, which, btw is free here, I better make the most of it before Berlusconi finishes to destroy the public school system and all the childcare we'll be left will be aging grandparents

I would love to join in with this debate. But I didn't read it until late last night.
Doing housework & gardening. Can't today as I'm off to work
A bit of me wishes that I didn't work when Ds was a baby. But we do our best as a family.
1 whole day at nursery 2 half days with my Mum picking him up at 1 pm. I work three full days.
What gets me is there are reports that Granny care isn't good for a child either.
I'm sorry I would have been a nightmare if I was home full time and poor.
I've met most of Ds friend's mother through Nursery. He would be a lone little boy without nursery as I'm not great at going to Mother and toddler groups! He has been friends with those kids since he was 9months old.

My son attended a nursery around here, he loved it my friend is a nanny, she regularly phones me and tells me 'I just thought I'd give you phone these little c*s are driving me mental today!' just because one seems better for one person does not mean it is ideal.

My son would not be happy with a nanny because he loves the social interaction and the different activites they provide so he can pick what he fancies whereas with a nanny/childminder he'd be stuck going round picking up other children from school with maybe one or two half decent activities everyday, this is from my experience I realise not everyone's will be the same.

Well, I like Steve Biddulph and I think he makes a lot of sense.

"Why isn't this angst about nurseries not perceived/discussed/shared here in Italy, for instance?"

Childcare habits and beliefs are deeply cultural and different countries pick up on different trends and scientific research according to their history and the state of their society.

Here in France one of the constant refrains is that it is "scandalous" that there isn't a crèche place for every baby from 2 months (end of maternity leave) to 3 years (when pre-school starts). As if crèche were a universal good and a human right, like school. It's just plain weird to my English ears - and, when you get anywhere near the crèches here in Paris, extremely worrying, given the way they treat the babies.

I dream of having Granny care to help me out

chatname-I so agree with your last point. Did you see her previous article-effectively saying what you are but without irony...

IME Granny care is fabulous! DD adores my mother and they do lovely things together - DD learns masses with my mother.

I don't like slagging the UK, my country of adoption for 12 years, but I am from Canada and back home, there is a 'universal' nursery system (a place for each child) which is monitored and administered by the government. It costs very little to the parents directly compared to the UK (but subsidised by taxes), and is inspected, the staff is highly educated, each 'year' group has a curriculum for play/learning, and nearly every parent goes back to work because tht system is very good. It has its faults - no doubts, like all government systems!! - but it is highly regarded by parents.

When I go back home and I say to my friends that I am a stay at home mum they look at me like i'm from a different planet/generation. But my two DSs are very close in age and nursery fees would have been very high, especially for a very good nursery.

Many of my friends send their children at nursery part time (I don't poersonally know anyone who sends their toddlers to nursery 5 days a week) and the kids appear sociable, happy, less fussy with their food, more outgoing then my two boys. I absolutely love being at home with them and it is my choice, but I am sceptical of such articles. I'm sure another study will come out soon proving the oposite.