Childcare : what the science says

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have relatives and friends who had children in those places, and they took the year and then went on to have huge careers, and they find the idea of putting a 3 or 4 month old child in daycare horrifying. We have normalized it here, but it's very unique in the world.

Here we go.

[Anonymous]

Sending infants and toddlers to daycare is not a US thing only my friends

As for childcare, the United States ranks 20th out of 31 OECD countries (for which we have data) in percentage of children ages 0-2 who are enrolled in formal childcare and 29th out of 31 countries in percentage of children ages 3-5 who are enrolled in formal childcare. Only 28 percent of children ages 0-2 in the United States are enrolled in formal care, far behind most other advanced economies. (See Figure 2.)

https://equitablegrowth.org/falling-behind-the-rest-of-the-world-childcare-in-the-united-states/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sah with my kids back then (woh full time now) and my biggest takeaway knowing all my kids friends, some who were in daycare, some who were home…it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. The sah kids are no more creative than daycare kids. The daycare kids don’t have better social skills. If any of them have mental health issues, they would have had them anyway. I hate these studies, they just contribute to the mommy wars. They create guilt where it’s unnecessary.

I don't know. I also have older kids now and the best students -- best grades and calmest -- in the class either had SAH moms or nannies from 0-3.

Once we know better, I don't think we (as a society) should look away from it. This is one of the reasons that most other advanced, wealthy countries encourage parental leave for 1-2 years.

Are you their teacher? How else would you know this?

Yeah this is weird to me. Who with older kids even knows which kids in class had what childcare scenario when they were younger.

Also, the overwhelming factors that affect children are SES and maternal education. Almost every study on childcare I’ve read has had to control for these factors because they skew the results so much. A well educated mom in a financially secure home, regardless of employment status, will likely have a better outcome for her children. Education + solid income is also going to lead to the ability to either have a SAHP or high quality childcare.

I have a graduate degree and a six figure income. We’ve used a variety of extended maternity leaves, part time work, nanny, high quality center based care, and preschool for our 3 kids. Basically we’ve been fortunate to do whatever worked for us in that stage of life.

Thanks to me working, we were able to buy a SFH in a desirable close-in neighborhood at a low interest rate that has gone up in value considerably. We have both parents contributing to retirement and college funds. We also plan to help our kids with down payment money some day. They can play travel sports and go to fancy camps. And they have a parent home to meet them at the bus every day because I kept my job long enough to earn lots of flexibility.

I think my kids are in a much better position than kids with a mom who barely passed high school and either had to SAH or pay for unlicensed childcare due to lack of options.

[Anonymous]

Below are some quotes from the actual "science" (the studies, not the anonymous blogger):

“The strongest and most consistent influences on behaviour and emotional problems were derived from the home, including lower socio-demographic status, poorer maternal caregiving, parental stress/maternal mental health problems, as well as child gender (being a boy). Non-parental childcare had small effects on child outcome. “
The influence of different forms of early childcare on children's emotional and behavioural development at school entry - Stein - 2013 - Child: Care, Health and Development - Wiley Online Library

“The magnitude of associations between child care hours and externalizing behavior was modest. Implications are that parents and policymakers must take into account that externalizing behavior is predicted from a constellation of variables in multiple contexts.”
Testing a series of causal propositions relating time in child care to children’s externalizing behavior. (apa.org)

“As long as results from longitudinal studies are not available, we can only speculate on the possible risks of the observed increases in cortisol levels at daycare. The literature has reported at least two findings that do not support the hypothesis that these patterns endure over the course of development. First, elevated cortisol levels have not been observed consistently across settings, and seem to be related to the specific context of daycare. After all, children's cortisol levels at home have been found to be lower than at daycare. …Second, the observed higher cortisol levels at daycare seem to disappear when children grow older.”
Children's elevated cortisol levels at daycare: A review and meta-analysis - ScienceDirect

[Anonymous]

The link here is to an anonymous author on Medium. What "science" is there here exactly? This is some Mommy wars trolling.

Actual engagement with the science: https://parentdata.org/day-care-bad-children/

And tldr: there are some impacts, they are small and fade quickly with age. Quality matters on all counts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This study has been linked/debunked previously

Yes go back and read the pages and pages of comments from the last few times it was posted.