This question is one that many working mothers must ask themselves. Yet current research shows that daycare for infants and toddlers is not as good as being with a parent or other relative.
Author of Motherhood: How should we care for our children?, Anne Manne, talks about the dilemma that many women face. If she gives up her job to have a child, “she incurs an opportunity cost — her forfeited income and possible career advancement.” If she places her child in daycare and returns to work then “it’s the baby, according to a growing body of research, who incurs the costs.”
Most parents do not place their babies or toddlers in daycare for extended hours each day. They try and supplement daycare with parental or other care. Interestingly enough those women who use the longest hours of daycare are upper-income women “who have the most to lose financially and in career terms by staying away from work.”
Anne Manne argues that the problem with daycare centers even those that are arguably “high-quality” still do not provide the same level of interaction and care as most parents do.
- In daycare centers there is typically one adult for every five babies. I worked in a “high-quality” daycare and this was the case. In the toddler room the rate was one adult for every 8 toddlers. Thus it is impossible to always respond to a babies need promptly and calmly and know each babies natural rhythms and preferences.
- Daycare centers usually have a high rate of turnover as well. Which means the infant never gets the chance to bond with their caregiver. I worked in the infant room two days a week for a two-month period before I quit and started my own in-home daycare.
- Researchers have also found that caregivers rarely emotionally engage with infants like parents do. For example “you’re with your baby and you follow their eye to an object and say, ‘Oh, would you like that? Shall I get the yellow teddy bear down? Shall we look at this storybook together?’ and so on.” During those shared moments the attachment of infant and child is reinforced, “learning takes place, and the child’s world is expanded.” In daycare centers researchers found almost no joint attention sequences. Infants would attempt to enter into a sequence and either be ignored or the caregiver would say one thing and then move on.
Researchers have also discovered a few more long-term effects of infants receiving long hours worth of care in a center. The 2001 the NICHD released the results of a long-term study, which looked at the emotional and behavioral outcomes of children who have been in daycare since infancy. The results showed “that, at kindergarten age, children who had already spent long hours in daycare showed much stronger aggression and related traits — really problematic behavior.” Similar results have been found in studies in Great Britain and California.
But what percentages of children actually experience this behavior? The study found that the number increased from 10% of children in part-time daycare to 18% in long-hour daycare. To many people this number may not seem like a big deal but Anne points out that this number is “massively higher than the risk of a clot for women having hormone replacement therapy — and look how seriously we take that.”
There have also been studies that compare cortisol levels in children in daycare and those receiving care at home. Cortisol is a hormone related to stress. Normally cortisol levels in children are high in the morning and decrease throughout the day. Studies have shown that even in high-quality daycares “cortisol levels in some children stay high or even increase as the day goes on. Even allowing for variables like temperament, daycare itself seems to have this effect.”
So why are daycares so popular? Anne Manne believes that capitalism and feminism have created this trend over the last few decades. Feminists encourage individualism and the idea that women should receive equal pay and succeed in the workplace on male terms believing that this step is in a women’s best interest. Along with feminism there is an increasing trend towards acquiring things. If the mother works then the family can afford “the things of the good life- larger houses, bigger cars, every imaginable gadget and so on.”
In contrast there are a growing number of “maternal” feminists “who emphasize the importance of women’s caring work, the immense contribution of that labor to the economy and to community wellbeing — as well as the care penalty women pay, which remains an issue of justice to be addressed.”
So why can’t women have the choice to return to the workforce and place their child in daycare or receive job-protected leave and a homecare allowance? In some European countries you can. Stay tuned for my upcoming blog discussing this issue.