The Research on Various Childcare Options
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Anonymous
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Has anyone seen this article before? It reviews the latest
child development research on daycare vs. SAHP/nanny, and I was shocked by the results. Spoiler: daycare and SAHP/nanny are beneficial at different ages. And please heed the warnings at the beginning of the article and read it at your discretion. https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4 |
Anonymous
| We went with the option we could afford, which was daycare. My kids turned out fine. |
Anonymous
+1 We used an in home daycare where the teachers barely spoke English. That’s all we could afford. Honestly it was amazing. |
Anonymous
| I read this, held my kid out of daycare for a while because of it, we were all miserable, he hated being home. Nanny doesn’t work for us because I WFH and find it uncomfortable/stressful for kiddo to be here. He’s in daycare and we are all so much happier! Don’t overthink it, do what works best for your family. |
Anonymous
| We went with what we believed in and worked best for our family (nanny) and our kids are thriving. In general, most kids thrive. |
Anonymous
I wonder if I'm one of the majority of parents who misjudges the quality of my childcare provider, but I use a small daycare center (16 kids total ages 0 to 5) that I trust. My kids weren't there fulltime until they turned 1, but I definitely worry about it. I wish taking career breaks to parent were easier and more financially feasible for more of us. 
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Anonymous
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Zero judgement from me on what people choose, especially since I understand choices are constrained by what you can afford. I know lots of kids who went to daycare starting from 2/3 months and they are good kids without issues.
But I intuitively felt that putting my 3 month old baby in daycare sounded bad. I tried really, really hard to find a daycare I could get comfortable with but the very best daycares (best caregiver ratios, with clean/bright/welcoming environment, nurturing caregivers) available were out of our price range and had mile long waitlists anyway. So I quit my job and was a SAHM for about 18 months. It was hard and my career definitely took a hit. It was the best choice I felt I could make given the available options. I also tried really hard to find a nanny share option that would work but could not. If we had better parental leave policies in this country, fewer families would need to make these hard choices. |
Anonymous
Me too, but at the same time, i took a career break for a year to stay home with a baby and I could NOT WAIT to be back at work. This was during COVID, to be fair, so no Mommy and Me class, etc. to keep me socializing, but still. And I had family help! |
Anonymous
| We were extremely fortunate to be able to use a great, accredited daycare center 3 days a week and a family member the other 2 days. It was a good mix with good results, but still many downsides. There are no perfect solutions. |
Anonymous
Same exact thing. Took a career break and was ready to get back. It definitely did take a hit to my career as finding a job wasn’t easy. That said, it allowed me to take the time to figure out a career with a lifestyle I wanted - WFH, flexible schedule, ability to go part time eventually - so I feel like it was a big win for me. |
Anonymous
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I think it's interesting that this article puts so much stock in observational studies. With child care in particular, the choices families make reflect variables that can't be observed. To actually use such studies to calculate effect sizes seems a little odd to me. And the Quebec study is interesting but needs to be placed in the context that they tried to scale up their child care system massively in a very short period of time. The study seems to clearly show that is not a great idea.
I don't doubt that child care can have negative effects, but I also think the scale of these negative effects is really unknown and most likely smaller than this author claims. I love the idea the author has of just giving families cash instead of child care subsidies. Totally support that for the first year. After that |
Anonymous
| After the first year you need to support a high quality child care system. You also need deep cultural change so that women don't bear the burden of lost earnings from caregiving. |
Anonymous
| In many parts of Asia, grandparents do the bulk of daytime childcare, so both parents are free to work at demanding jobs. And with loose employment regulations, boy, are those jobs rough. |
Anonymous
| Love my daughters home day care. I couldn’t imagine having a nanny even if we could afford one. |
Anonymous
| Most of the studies she cites are 15+ years old and some are from the 70s. Does not seem very current |