Children perform better if mother stays at home
Posted on November 8, 2008
There have been many studies (e.g here and here) showing that institutional childcare is harmful to all but the most deprived of preschool children so it is good to see more recognition of that
Babies should be looked after by their mothers in their first years of life, Tony Blair’s favourite think tank signalled yesterday. It published research that admitted babies and toddlers sent for long hours in daycare learn less quickly, have worse health, and behave worse than other children. It also suggested that the children suffer because mothers who return home from work tired and unhappy are less able to give them the time and full attention they need.
The warnings over childcare published by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggest a dramatic rethink over working mothers and childcare at the heart of the Blairite establishment. Since 1997 Labour has poured billions into subsidising nurseries and childminders through the tax credit system, through direct daycare benefits, and through the troubled Sure Start project meant to help the neediest families. Persuading mothers to go back to work soon after their children are born has been a central plank of Mr Blair’s ‘project’.
Three years ago the Department of Trade and Industry – then headed by current Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt – published a paper describing those who do not return to jobs in the first two years after childbirth as a ‘problem’. It said mothers who stayed at home were not giving the taxpayer a return on the cost of their education. Despite growing evidence from independent studies that full-time childcare can have harmful effects, new figures from the Education Department last week boasted proudly that a record number of more than 700,000 children now attend nurseries for more than four hours a day.
But two articles in the IPPR’s journal said the children would be better off staying at home with their mothers. Psychologist and TV presenter Oliver James, who described himself as a ‘reasonable left wing person’, said he was sceptical about the drive for ‘affordable childcare’.
He said: ‘My proviso comes in when politicians, who have the evidence about how important early care is on children’s development, decide that only people doing paid work are of any value and that there is a moral duty for us all to do a paid day’s work. ‘Trying to persuade parents of very young children, particularly single mothers, to leave them and go out to work, while not an unqualified no no, fails to recognise that somebody has got to be left holding the baby and that, on the whole, it is better if it is one of the child’s biological parents up to the age of three.’ Oliver James added: ‘On the whole children who attend daycare under three are at greater risk of being aggressive. ‘I am arguing for us to rediscover feminism. Let’s actually have female emancipation and not the nonsense that we have got now. One part of that is definitely supporting women who do want to care for their children to be able to do so.’
A second article by US academic Janet Waldfogel told IPPR subscribers that in the first year after birth ‘there are reasons to think that exclusive mother care would be best for a child.’ She cited learning ability, health and social development as adversely affected for those who are in childcare before their first birthday. ‘Across all three dimensions, with all things held equal, children tend to do worse if their mothers work in the first year of life,’ she said. Children also did best if they lived in two-parent families, she added, in a view that conflicts with the Government’s policy that claims all kinds of families are just as good as each other.
Both IPPR journal contributors said there should be ‘costly’ new public spending to pay salaries or give more time off work to new mothers. But critics of subsidised childcare said the best way to help mothers stay at home was to give tax breaks to help one-earner families. Jill Kirby of the centre-right think tank Centre for Policy Studies said: ‘It is gradually dawning on the Government that they should do nothing more to penalise mothers who stay at home with their children. ‘There is very strong evidence that childcare, and in particular the mass cheap childcare that Labour favours, is not in the best interests of young children. ‘The way to help mothers is not to put even more burdens on taxpayers or employers, but to cut taxes for one earner, two parent families with young children. Tax breaks would ease the difficulties for families at the point of greatest pressure.’
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
» Filed Under News, Parenting, Psychology, Science/pseudo-science, feminism
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Instead of looking at this issue in terms of women being liberated from child-rearing and able to freely pursue earning, we need to look at the common sense observation that anyone you love, spouse, partner, parent, is not happy to be replaced by a paid stand-in. Small children thrive where they feel loved. We should look at the role of taking care of kids as vital to the wellbeing of kids, vital to the maintenance of a productive, healthy generation and therefore useful work in an economy. Being home with the children is not’staying home’ or opting out of work. It is taking on vital work, intense 18 hour days, often to do lifesaving tasks, and the women’s movement is not fulfilled until we value this role as much as we value paid work. Then women can choose which’ work’ to do as their hearts lead them.