Reply to Does SAHM make a difference during infant years?

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[quote=Anonymous]If we are just talking benefit to the child in terms of development (social, emotional, motor skills, brain functioning), I think you have to weigh multiple factors.

A really engaged, loving SAHP (mother or father) who is willing to put in the legwork to make sure the child is getting what they need is, in my mind ideal. But it's not ideal if the SAHP is frazzled and miserable. It's not ideal if they are bored and irritable. It's not ideal if they are flipping on the TV all day, or unwilling to take the baby to the park or the library, or don't talk to the baby throughout the day, or not particularly patient or gentle.

So if you don't have a parent who both has the will to do it right, or cannot afford for one parent to stay home to do this, I think the next best thing is a really good nanny. One who is going to do all the things you would want a SAHP to do.  Which you might find! But you also might not.

A fairly engaged parent who sometimes gets bored or watches TV sometimes is still better than a semi-engaged nanny who does the same, in my opinion. But a really good daycare with great teachers could be better than either one.

A terrible daycare is the worst of all possible worlds.

So you have to figure out what your options are and make the best choice you can. I wound up SAH because I knew I could be a very engaged parent. And I was, about 90% of the time. Sometimes I slacked off, but I knew when I did it and the benefits of the rest of the time outweighed whatever negatives might have stemmed from the days I was burned out and just threw on a movie and took the morning off. I don't know how I would have felt about paying a nanny to put in that 90%. Probably fine? I enjoyed SAH so that helped.

I do know that the daycares I looked at were kind of sketchy and it stressed me out to think about leaving my baby there. An older kid I might have felt better about, but not a 3 month old. There are better daycares out there, but I couldn't get an infant spot in them (I tried!).

So it's a dance you do. The moms posting in here about how the ideal is to keep your job and higher the perfect nanny... well, yes, that could be ideal (unless you really want to stay home with your child, which many of us do). But it's also out of reach for a lot of people. So you have to evaluate YOUR options, not all the available options in the world, many of which won't present themselves to you.

Of all my available options (mediocre daycare, okay nanny, or pretty good but by no means perfect SAHM), I know I chose the best one. That doesn't mean it would be best for you or for someone else. You might have a more extensive menu to choose from.[/quote]

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