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?

great post fp...very intersting....

Thanks Sophable - just can't find anyone with 2 places four days a week that I'm happy with to be honest. Feel better for rant though and thanks for responding.

that's ok. am fully aware of how rock and hard place it is...good luck with it all

DO I mean Maslow? Am I trying to create a hybrid theory or has the phrase good enough distracted me?

mental note to self to revise theory!

It's not neglect (or shouldn't be!), the children ARE fed, changed, cuddled etc but there isn't the time to really develop and stimulate in a way you might want to. Their basic needs are met by someone - not necessarily the mother though.

Of course here I'm assuming the staff are 100% dedicated and focussed on the children.

Articles like this make me so cross. There ARE some great nurseries out there but you do need to look around until you find one thats suits your child and you feel happy with.

How many parents really want to leave their children? I know I certainly didn't when I had to go back to work 3 days a week when my DS (and later DD) was 5 months old. I cried my eyes out on his first day but in hindsight it was the best possibel thing for all of us.

Nursery has helped turn my children into well rounded, confident individuals (they are 5 and 2 now). Both children have always loved goign to nursery and have made lots of friends there. Their language and social skills devleoped much quicker and the 'nursery nurses' who work there are trained in providing a varied and stimulating environment - much more than I could have offered them as a SAHM. I believe I struck gold when i found my nursery and can't praise the staff enough as think they do a wonderful job for very little money.

Don't tarnigh all nurseries because of horror stories inthe press - I am sure they do exist but there are some wonderful ones too you just need to look, talk to local parents and find them.

Good luck!

The best nursery in our area charges £20 less per day than the most expensive and imo very shoddy overpriced overselling nursery.

The care is excellent, the nursery head well known and loved, the only problem is hardly anyone can get in. The waiting list is 2 year's long, and often the list is closed as siblings take the places.

But it doesn't take children until they are 2. It is private but for some reason quality of care is valued much more highly than profit.

So they do exist, but are very rare. The other one we tried did just value profit and it was awful.

Oh I didn't mean to imply that an intelligent person WON'T be a good childcarer, policywonk, I was trying to say that academic intelligence is not a pre-requisite for being a good childcarer. There are plenty of highly intelligent, academic and educated people working in childcare and academically inclined people can be brilliant with small children but "an academic person does not a good childcarer make" (automatically).

I guess I'm trying to say that there are a lot of factors which make a good childcarer and how many degrees you have isn't one of them but there should be a minimum standard which has to be met for people working with children.

winnicott is good enough theorist.

basic needs met is not good enough. good enough means a consistent loving caregiver (one person) that a child can attach to.

the thing that gets to me the most is that there seems to be no understanding of the most basic attachment theory research (backed up now by research in developmental neuroscience) in govt policy.

i think that this is a socio-political-econimic problam on a huge scale.

Once again, I'd like to point out that in many European countries where nurseries are subsidized by the state and therefore with higher standards of care, there are no such debates about nurseries being damaging to children.

I am glad to see the artile and glad to see the thread hasn't turned into SAHM/WOHM. I don't understand all this 'let's not talk about it because it upset us'. Yes it does upset us but we have to talk about it and be aware and articles like this should be printed and we should challenge nurseries. It is not a taboo to expose chain Restaurants and their filthy kitchens so why should be taboo to expose bad Nurseries?

2 points I'd like to make:

1. non-parental care is both historically and cross-culturally normative.

1. I hae seen a lot of nurseries (and a lot of nannies, been one myself many moons ago), and I think the care children recieve is very much down to staff members. I am very, very happy with my children's nursery, and I feel grateful to them for the hard work they do.

Some of the posts remind me my uncle when he read articles about smoking and cancer. He always said-with a cigarete in his hand- 'oh thats bullshit this artiles make me cross i am smoker and i am fine'. P.S. He eventually died from smoking related cancer

sorry i meant 'articles' (Keyboard problem)

Marla not yours. Just happened that yours was before i posted. But i don't think is an odd comparison. People always react like this to researhes-smokers did the same when papers started printing the facts.

SydneyB - I feel like you - that is why I started this thread.

I suppose I am sick and tired of reading these kind of articles, broadly agreeing with them and then sobbing into my cornflakes over the fact that I may find myself unavoidably in this situation.

DH and I are trying to think longterm for our family. He has been a SAHD for 18 months now and is fantastic with our children. However, any longer out of work and, especially for a man (stupid to pretend otherwise) his "career break" starts to look like something else.

We have to think of our future. We have to start paying off some of this damn mortgage. We have to get him back on the career ladder otherwise he may be off it for good - and then what do we say when our children potentially want to go into further education as both DH and I did?

I want to be the kind of parent that can help them make the increasingly financially precarious step into adulthood and independence.

I also want to think that I haven't bust my arse supporting my family all these years to retire on a pittance of a pension with no savings and still with a giant mortage round our necks. I want to envisage a life once children have flown the nest that seems rosy round the edges.

I'm so cross that, from my perspective, this involves DH going back to work at a time when as a family, we would all much rather he stay at home and be with the children.

I should add that I far out-earned DH even in his former job and our current home and lifestyle (by that I mean where we live - we have no bloody lifestyle at the moment!)are largely based upon my earnings and his were back up to that.

The only solution would be for us to move...to a smaller house and much less appealing neighbourhood. And it would crush me to have to do that.

FWIW I think, especially after reading all the posts on this thread, that we will just battle this out until we can find a childminder we like who can take both DC's.

Marla i know you havn't been PA. The link is not between the dangers of smoking and dangers of nurseries (God no) but in the way that we usually react to researh about something we have been doing (=we don't want to hear about it).I am ex smoker btw (grin]

can i add to the debate that i would take anything steve biddulph writes with a large pinch of salt - i have found his books on raising happy children very strange at times. it may be that he needs a good edit but they come across as quite bullying - his is the best way, only way etc

i think good nurseries can be fantastic places. bad ones exist and are hugely disappointing. its the same with schools/hospitals - anywhere that people work/are paid badly etc making massive generalisations about all nurseries/all schools/all doctors etc just sounds stupid

Marla that's quite a strong reaction. What parts do you think contribute to the "fucking women how dare they?" tone?