When you say you have your child in daycare around here you often get a little sniffy reaction. Daycare? Really? Wouldn't a nanny be preferable? Daycare damages children's brains.
Before I moved to the US and gave up my right to work, I had my life as a working parent all planned out. I would work three days per week while my spouse worked four days a week and our child would then only have to go to daycare for one day per week when he was young. This was in librul commie pinko Europe of course where I would have had a year off on maternity leave, in theory, although only about four months of that would have been paid.
Daycare did not appeal to me. I worried that my child couldn't possibly thrive in such an environment. I assumed that the ideal situation for a working mother would be to hire a nanny rather than subject her child to group care. How could group care be good for a young child with so many intense needs and an inability to verbalize them? Surely one-on-one care in the home would be best?
Now that I am a parent, however, and a stay-at-home parent at that, I see the benefits of daycare more than I did before. Firstly, being at home full-time has made me realize what atomized lives we all live these days. Traditionally a woman raising children had extended family nearby and would have lived as part of an established, traditional community.
She would have known and trusted her neighbors. She would most likely have had many more than just one child. My grandmothers had five and eight children each. Children typically grew up in a group setting with cousins, neighbors and siblings providing their social context, not solitary interaction with one caregiver. Many people still are fortunate enough to be able to raise their children in such tight-knit families and communities but I, and many other mothers I know, don't have that option.
So who takes the place of grandparents and siblings and cousins in the small nuclear families we now have? I think daycare is a good substitute. If it is a good daycare facility, your child can bond with his caregivers and make friends among the other children. Even if he is too young to have 'friends' as such, these children will be familiar faces for him.
In his new preschool my son interacts with children his own age and learns how to sit quietly at circle time, how to share toys and how to wait his turn. In his life to come these will be important skills and if we do have another child, he will hopefully be able to transition better to the idea of sharing.
As individuals we all exist within the context of society. Group interactions are the norm in society, whether at work, school or in sports or science. Despite our obsession with lone geniuses like Einstein or Steve Jobs, even 'lone wolf' high achievers like this will sometimes have to work alongside others.
Negotiating group situations and managing other people are very valuable skills that my son will need in today's competitive world. I'm very happy that we can afford to send him to a good daycare for a couple of mornings a week to help him develop socially. Parents who send their children to a daycare facility full-time shouldn't be made to feel that they are making an inferior choice. In the context of our past, children being raised in a group environment like daycare are closer to the traditional style of child-rearing than anything else in our modern, atomized society.
She would have known and trusted her neighbors. She would most likely have had many more than just one child. My grandmothers had five and eight children each. Children typically grew up in a group setting with cousins, neighbors and siblings providing their social context, not solitary interaction with one caregiver. Many people still are fortunate enough to be able to raise their children in such tight-knit families and communities but I, and many other mothers I know, don't have that option.
So who takes the place of grandparents and siblings and cousins in the small nuclear families we now have? I think daycare is a good substitute. If it is a good daycare facility, your child can bond with his caregivers and make friends among the other children. Even if he is too young to have 'friends' as such, these children will be familiar faces for him.
In his new preschool my son interacts with children his own age and learns how to sit quietly at circle time, how to share toys and how to wait his turn. In his life to come these will be important skills and if we do have another child, he will hopefully be able to transition better to the idea of sharing.
As individuals we all exist within the context of society. Group interactions are the norm in society, whether at work, school or in sports or science. Despite our obsession with lone geniuses like Einstein or Steve Jobs, even 'lone wolf' high achievers like this will sometimes have to work alongside others.
Negotiating group situations and managing other people are very valuable skills that my son will need in today's competitive world. I'm very happy that we can afford to send him to a good daycare for a couple of mornings a week to help him develop socially. Parents who send their children to a daycare facility full-time shouldn't be made to feel that they are making an inferior choice. In the context of our past, children being raised in a group environment like daycare are closer to the traditional style of child-rearing than anything else in our modern, atomized society.
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