Chris, when you say “they’re finding that it would be useful to start more formal education earlier” you have to be careful about what you mean by “formal”. In northern Europe (Scandinavia and I think Germany too) they don’t start formal teaching in the sense of teaching the 3Rs until age 7 and the Finns in particular are consistently world champs in academic achievement when measured at age 15.

The ‘preschool education’ that researchers found beneficial was, I understand, based on make-believe or imaginative role play, but I’ve only seen reports of the studies, not the studies themselves.

I would also like to point out that where the actual deaths and traumatic injuries occur is in the nuclear or extended family, which is being treated as the Gold Standard here. Don’t take from this “OMG Helen is saying families are bad!!1!”, because I’m not. It’s just that if we’re going to go into the minutiae of everything that could go wrong with formal childcare, it’s only fair to point out that… well, children get killed in family care all the time. Or starve to death. It’s very rare that that happens in day care.

For children over 3, certainly 4-5 there’s another whole pile of research that says quality preschool education will give markedly better developmental outcomes and life chances. From memory economists have calculated the return on investment as about 8:1.

Its interesting that the starting school age seems to be going up – I started
year 1 at school when 4.5 and whilst the youngest in the year, was not the youngest by much (a couple of months). So its not surprising at all to me that they’re finding that it would be useful to start more formal education earlier.

jo @118 said:

For some mothers who do have many options, and still choose to book their baby into formal care for long hours on multiple days, I would think that this means ipso facto – a much greater likelihood of attachment problems. Therefore opting for formal childcare is a symptom of a problem not the cause.

However, if you believe that childcare is superior (for socialisation reasons etc) then its a logical decision to put them into childcare as soon as possible even if you’d prefer to look after them yourself. Even if you think that childcare is just as good as the job you’d do, then financial issues are going to have more influence than if you thought it was suboptimal.

And I would think that many of these women would prefer options like Family Day Care if available. And for most upper middle class career women & families – nannies are the go, not childcare centres.

A very expensive way to go, but having a nanny removes some of the attachment issues, its much more similar to a close relative being the carer.

Isn’t the ‘excessive financial gain’ a bit of a red herring? If you think child-care for very young kids is potentially bad for them, then it’s bad for them regardless of the reason for placing them in child-care.

That’s pretty much what Steve Biddulph is saying:

Care-raised babies don’t all become psychopaths, but they are measurably more anxious, aggressive and disobedient as they move through preschool and the primary grades. We even know why this is so. The stress hormone cortisol, measured in a baby’s saliva, doubles if they are placed in care, and it is still elevated even months after they start.

It also rises as the day goes on, whereas it falls away in home-raised babies. Australian studies have replicated this. Elevated cortisol suppresses growth, including brain growth, and reduces immunity.

And:

Quality care – from university-trained carers, stable staff in high ratios – is helpful, but does not eliminate the damage.

Biddulph is saying this is true for children under 3.

For children over 3, certainly 4-5 there’s another whole pile of research that says quality preschool education will give markedly better developmental outcomes and life chances. From memory economists have calculated the return on investment as about 8:1.

I talked to my wife about this who has had 40 years experience teaching kindergarten, preschool and now prep. She hasn’t worked in childcare. She did do time as a governess in a rich and somewhat posh home in England where she stayed the course as distinct from her predecessors who tended to escape early.

She reckons that quality of parenting is a more important factor than childcare. So children of brilliant parents will do fine whether they attend childcare or not.

My wife favours family day care against institutional care and this is the path we took with our son. First she stayed at home and took in 3 kids of friends who were working. The pay rates were pathetic.

Then when she went back teaching half time out of economic necessity she hired a young woman who had done a governess course to look after him at home. Rather expensive but more or less OK. Finally she made an arrangement with one of her preschool mums. They exchanged kids every morning and afternoon. The mum had younger kids at home and it worked well.

Of course you do have to be careful about standards with family day care.

Apart from that my wife reckons there should be a lot more help in parenting skills. Gerald Ashby, the first and late, great director of Preschool Education in Qld initiated free parenting help in a trial program at Humpybong and some other underprivileged areas. But the money couldn’t be found to sustain it although it was probably an excellent social investment.

So klaus k the claim by Biddulph and co is that the research is in. Yet as Chris (a different one) said we make compromises in the interests of the whole family. Childcare has a place as one of the options and those who work there can do so with honour.

I think, however, that the ‘best interests of the child’ must be a guiding principle and generally trumps the needs of business. Generally speaking to act in favour of the best interests of the child is to the public good in the long run.

Most people are prepared to make some sacrifices to further the best interests of their children. I think sc is (rightfully) objecting to cases where the wants of the parents are placed ahead of the needs of the child. How often that happens is another matter and it’s not an argument against childcare as she has now several times pointed out.

The ABS stats work out at 49,000 in formal care for over 35 hours per week & includes all kids 0-12, not just babies.

Secondly, all these stats are quoting usage are based on what is being ‘paid for’ and ‘claimed for’ and not actual usage – you’d have to analyse the sign in/sign out registers to produce real usage rates.

When my daughter was 4yo and was in care for 3 days per week – I was charged for and paid for 30 hours – when in reality she was dropped off after 9.30 and picked up at 4.30 and some weeks I only worked two days per week, but paid to keep my regular spot- or would drop her off for a short time for an appt etc. on that day etc. Therefore the actual usage was mostly 21 hours or less per week, not the 30 paid for. And this is replicated across the nation. This centre in particular had a lot of stay at home & part-time working mothers on the books. The place mostly emptied at 3pm when school came out, and nearly all picked up by 4.30pm etc.

For those who don’t have kids and or use formal childcare: nearly all childcare centres charge a daily rate which is claimed to Centrelink for a rebate as amounts of hours – often the daily opening hours i.e.. 10 hours – no matter how many hours you use. Before and After School Care is charged in 3 hour blocs for morning and 3 hours per afternoon – no matter if you pick up your kids 30 minutes after the bell – so the stats. already show more far hours than what are being used.

I actually couldn’t find any qualification of this on the ABS data – but one would assume that no-one is punching in the ’sign in/sign out’ book data for little Flynn and Tallulah – rather what is being is collected, analysed and then reported is what is being processed via the CCB system etc.

So, assuming that if all of the 7% who use formal care over 35 hours is applied to the 7% of the total who are babies under 12 months = equals 3,486 babies at the most. Then assume that the 35 hours per week figure could be inflated by up to 20%-40% -yadda, yadda – you’d have to agree that the numbers of these ‘poor wee bairns’ is not being accurately reflected in these type of debates.

And in consideration of these actual ‘poor wee bairns’ – i.e.. the babies under 12 months who are in formal care for over 35 hours per week – firstly ,the families who have no other options as Helen points out – sickness, death, financial etc. need for us to provide the very best care, but also need us to provide real options and choices, which is what I hope your point is – ie. these families don’t have choices and would more than likely choose to parent their baby at home in the first 12 months. Agreed.

For some mothers who do have many options, and still choose to book their baby into formal care for long hours on multiple days, I would think that this means ipso facto – a much greater likelihood of attachment problems. Therefore opting for formal childcare is a symptom of a problem not the cause.

And this where community and council run centres have a such an important and vital role to play – ie. the qualified Centre Coordinator who has an Early Childhood Degree liaises with Community Nurse and Council Social Worker……..and may arrange to have a chat to see how things are going with the new baby, and what’s happening at home and how the other siblings are and so on.

And possibly this where we should be looking at supporting more Family Day Care place for babies under 12 months, to support these women and families, who do require multiple long days for whatever reason.

And for career women who are unwilling to set aside their career, well our society and state is often arranged around the shortcomings of men : ) …..more seriously, Childcare centres are open for specified hours, and any person can enrol their baby/child into a centre if they meet the guidelines blah, so unless you legislate to restrict the amount of hours a service can care for a particular baby per day or week, which then would discriminate against those that have no options, but whatever – you are always only ever left with a very small group of mothers who for career/financial gain or whatever – are happy to co-parent their baby with a childcare centre.

And I would think that many of these women would prefer options like Family Day Care if available. And for most upper middle class career women & families – nannies are the go, not childcare centres.

Try this exercise out right now.
Grab a white pages, pick an affluent suburb.
Call a centre, and ask about booking your 6 wk old child into full time care.
Say you’re 6 months pregnant and just exploring your options about when to return to work.
Say you’re worried your baby will be the only infant in there.

See what they say.

Now seek out a childcare worker privately. Ask them off the record if it happens.
Then ask them if they would ever do it for their own kids (if they weren’t working there).

Letter is buried in here

It sounds bad –
But is there any such situation actually, or has somebody just thought this up as an emotive example of why mothers should be ‘encouraged’ to not work for two years?

I don’t think we have any alternative but to gamble, frankly. Given the extent of documented abuse and maltreatment before this recent proliferation of childcare, I would say that maintaining traditional arrangements are at least as much of a gamble. At least in childcare there’s accountability, there’s the chance that problems will be recognised and addressed – especially in high-quality services.

Besides the fact that “tremendous stress in childcare” is just assumed.

have no references handy, but I thought there had been quite a bit of research into that (modulo the tremendous bit).

You see this is the sort of statement that makes me gag. “Never going to see my kid.” SO dishonest. It kind of frames the statement so that someone who hasn’t had kids yet has this mental vision of a child in care 24/7 whereas in fact that kid is picked up by a parent and taken home for dinner, bath and bed. Besides the fact that “tremendous stress in childcare” is just assumed.

SOunds like the prob with Climate change data.
We can only go on past research and project it onto likely outcomes for future cohorts. We could be wrong and its all just a beat up. Wanna gamble?

But when it comes to raising children, we can’t assume that we have a person there in advance of the process we’re trying to assess, who we can use as a yardstick in order to quantify the benefits of the process. The problem is that they are emerging and being created by that process. So it is not particularly useful for Fox to ask “but does the child want you if you are going to put it in childcare at six weeks?” Mostly her intervention just seems like a lot of ill-thought out assumptions wrapped in this emotive rhetoric, and I don’t know what she is trying to achieve really.

” And while its not ‘abuse’ , IMHO its pretty poor option to stick a 6 week old kid in 50-60 hr a week daycare, when one has genuine alternatives, like giving up the 4WD.

At 18 mths i sent my kid one day a week to daycare, for her and for me. I had no family around and needed the break, I’m not hardline against it.

However when i wanted to get out of the house and back to work, my partner, took time off and became the house hubby instead. ”

I didnt say i totally agreed with Mem Fox, did I ?
I didn’t say i was blanket anti childcare either.
I specifically spoke to the issue of 6wk old infants in long day care of 50 to 60 hours as being a poor choice for an affluent person who has no finacial compulsion to do this. I specifically stated in my first comment that i did not think it was ‘abuse’.

Further Mem Fox might have rambled on about quite few things outside her areas of expertise, but i didnt get the picture she was blanketly criticising childcare per se either.

Fox: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,24268220-2682,00.html
“I don’t know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work.

“I know you want a child, and you have every right to want a child, but does the child want you if you are going to put it in childcare at six weeks? I don’t think the child wants you, to tell the honest truth. I know that’s incredibly controversial.

“I was talking to someone in childcare in Queensland earlier this year. She said that we’re going to look back on this time from the late ’90s onwards, with putting children in childcare so early in their first year of life for such long hours, and wonder how we have allowed that child abuse to happen.

“It’s actually child abuse. It’s just awful. It’s awful for the mothers as well. It’s completely heartbreaking.

“You actually have to say to yourself, `If I have to work this hard and if I’m never going to see my kid and if they are going to have a tremendous stress in childcare, should I be doing it?’

I think a singleton at home is no more ‘natural’ than a bunch of kids in child care, and I think they benefit from the peer contact.

Some parents are feeling pressured into putting their children into childcare at least some of the time because they are being told that its needed for socialisation purposes. I don’t know if this is true (I doubt it – I think its a bit of a myth that children don’t get sufficient peer contact unless they go to childcare), but its another reason that we need to be able to discuss research into this without it turning into a pro or anti childcare debate.

Its always going to be about a compromise around what is best for the family as a whole. Its easier on parent’s minds if they think it better for the children in childcare compared to home-care, but it would be nice to know if thats actually true.

The benefit subsidises parents who put their kids in childcare. The maximum a family can get is $9000 a year if they are earning less than $40,000 for one child.

Well it may not be popular, but a means tested payment based on family income independent of whether the child goes into childcare or not would be better. Parents can decide to spend the money on childcare so they can work and earn more money, or to use the payment to partially offset the forgone wages.

Here’s another: At child care, kids are routinely and daily exposed to books. This is of course the case for middle class kids at home, but not necessarily for the rest. That might be their only chance to experience what Mem Fox and Mark Latham considered so important.

Isn’t this something that can be just as well addressed with better community groups, education and facilities?