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?

jas, on the same note is it necesarry to say that all children are 'dmaaged' by being at nuresery and that all nurseries are places from hell that ignore or abuse your child when you are not there?

franca, could you enlighten us as to the general feelings regarding nursery care in Italy. I'd be interested to hear how other coutries view child care and what the expectation is regarding staying at home/going back to work.

BR

I know a lot of Italian women as Unilever pay for them to attend my DC's old school whilst they are secondment.
One lady has 3 boys which she could never have had in Italy, according to her the grandparents look after the child as the mother is expected to work and as a result there are many only children or 5 year age gaps, which is becoming common here too.

justabout, there are good nurseries and bad nurseries, good parents and bad parents.

The comparison for the purposes of mumsnetters, whose children by definition would have at least one involved
parent, is at what point does the damage of a bad nursery cancel out the dominant and protective effect of the child being otherwise nurtured in a loving family?

And we have lots of threads about mnetters being concerned about the care their children get at nursery and comparing notes. So if they got the selection wrong, it does not tend to last for long.

By all means have a national debate on how to raise standards of care at nurseries. But to demonise all nursery care per se is not helpful to vulnerable mnetters facing the wrench of whether to return to work at the end of maternity leave, when if you choose well could work out very very well indeed whilst remaining flexible on the adequacy of care going forward.

Being out of work for 2-3 years is often a life sentence in terms of getting back into any form of fulfilling career. Hence this decision being very important, particularly for a mother who enjoys work and wants the security of her own earning power.

justabout, I realise I was violently agreeing with you!

Just quickly skimming the thread again, ssd comments at one point about children at Nursery running to parents who come to pick up kids. DS used to kick up a fuss to stay, he liked it so much.

Agreed. comparisons should be made between 'good' nurseries and 'good' homes, which I think was the point that was being made. People seem to constantly refer to 'bad' nurseries and how damaging they are compared to a 'good' home. Never seem to see anything about 'good' nurseries when these comparisons are being made.

It is such an emotive subject and I agree with a lot of the posts here that each child is individual. Some just aren't suited to the nursery environment. Some, like my DS, would not have suited a child minder as he would take up far to much time and attention when he was older(lime light hogger!)

And on a purely selfish note (flame away) I like the idea that there are several nursery nurses forming a bond and not one particular person. I am a very selfish mummy!

For me nursery also means we choose when to take our family holidays and it isn't foisted apon us due to day care provider not being available.

Incidentally, DS1 goes to holiday club at DS2's nursery so they get to be together in the holidays even though I can't be with them .

BR

franca, my dc's nursery has an 8-week settling-in period for children starting fulltime. Agree that the settling in period is one of the ways to sort the wheat from the chafe nursery-wise.

It gradually built up from an hour every 3 days to almost 5 hours. The staff insisted I stayed in the room for the initial sessions, then moving me to a side room to be on standby if they could not settle ds, eventually telling me to use the time to go shopping because my ds was absolutely fine. All free! I thought Christmas had come early.

The wait list is longer than my arm. I put my ds on the wait list as soon as the risk of miscarriage fell off after 12 weeks.

Apologies I have not read this entire thread. However I have read Steve Biddulph's book on The Secrets of Raising Happy Children in which he devotes a chapter to childcare options and explains his views on nurseries. I think a couple of important points are that the long term effects of such childcare are simply not known. He says it is effectively a huge social experiment. It's simply not comparable to children being raised by the extended family in the past. The negative effects he refers to might only be apparent in the long term and might be subtle. (I hope this is a correct summary!)
It seems that government policy is predicated on the basis that nursery care is a good thing and I do not think enough consideration and research has done into the possible negative consenquences or what alternatives can be made available.
However, I agree that it can depend on the child, the nursery and the circumstances and I think that the whole child care issue is so difficult and so expensive for families and that nurseries or child minders are the only options for many families. So we shouoldn't saddle ourselves with guilt.

Woby, is it a huge social experiment though. What about research coming out of Scandanavian countries who have successfully had widespread use of nursery well ahead of the UK?

We should be looking to see what parts of the Scandanavian model (and indeed Italian or Belgian) work and how to apply that in the UK to raise the general standards of nurseries here.

But that is not so sensational and probably won't sell his books.

"I really do get irritated when working mothers use the argument that home=child abuse." Not half as annoying as I find it when people trot out the childcare =abuse line.

I think the point people were making (which is true) is that not all home lives are happy and caring and not all caring mothers cope very well with looking after their children 24/7.

Personally I rarely think it so clear cut that huge damage is done by sending your child to a nursery before they are 2. I think it is possible that some nurseries (maybe even the majority) are not as good as having a single carer looking after your child. But are they significantly worse? Most children absorb a million different experiences in their childhood years and each contributes to the person they become. In my limited experience of friends with children, I know SAHM's, WOHM's who use a nursery, WOHM's who use a childminder and our children all seem to be pretty normal and certianly you couldn't tell one from the other easily (except by asking them!).

You need to balance your childs needs over the whole of their early years eg is it better for me to go back to work after 6 months and put Junior in a competant local nursery when it would mean being able to afford my current house which puts us in the catchment for one of the best schools in the area grade 1 Ofsted. Or is it better for me to sell teh house, stay with Junior as long as the money lasts then go back to work say when he's three then rent a house but be stuck in an area with significantly worse schools.

I make the best decision I can like most parents.

it isn;t - wrong phrase perhaps (am supposed to be working )

Blueshoes, I'm not sure what the research coming out of Scandinavia says but I agree that they seem way ahead in many ways one it comes to education.

I would be disappointed if a professional like Biddulph would publish a book with views such as this simply to sell his book. But maybe I am naive.

But I agree with you that we should be looking to improve nursery settings in the way that other countries have done.

Interesting that my fairly tame and fair comment response was deleted by mn. Is Biddulph getting litigious in SWMNBN fashion?

Wondered why that had gone. Thought you'd asked for it to be deleted for some reason.

Does this mean we're not allowed to imply that authors intentionally make inflammatory comments just to sell books?

bunny, would be nice for mn towers to clarify the basis for deletion.

I did not ask for my post to be deleted. If I did, I believe it would say 'message withdrawn at poster's request' instead.

Oops sorry - fat fingers - it shouldn't have been deleted - any chance you could post it again?

LOL and here's me getting all humpy.

PMSL at my own reaction.

Blushoes, it's not what you posted, it's was purely personal [smil]