How much daycare is too much?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-10-2004
How much daycare is too much?
707
Thu, 03-31-2005 - 11:26am

Did anyone see the Wall Street Journal today? An article on the "Personal Journal" page talks about two studies that are coming out -- one being the already referenced NICHD study -- that shows 45+ hours a week of day can do harm to a child. What I found interesting about it is that the NICHD study says *anything* other than mom care is other care!! What happened to Dad?

The other article, in the same section, is an article about how parents are outsourcing everything now, including potty training! The article states that parents will send a child to a batting coach instead of just playing catch in the backyard. Another service, that costs $60 an hour (!), will help teach your child how to ride a bike!

I don't have an online subscription to the Journal, so I can't post the stories here. Does anyone else have one?

mom_writer

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 3:57pm

Oh....thanks for the MUCH needed chuckle and break from my taxes.


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:02pm

Or there is our option.....both of us work, so neither has to work the crazy hours and miss huge time pieces from family and individual life, we both get to enjoy both.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:04pm

Oh yeah? We must be doing something really, really wrong. We have taught our kids, from the time they were old enough to listen, a version of American history that doesn't include the fallacy that Christopher Colunbus was unique in the fifteenth century in positing that the earth was round rather than flat. And both of them have come home and told us that we are dead wrong because somebody at school told them that Columbus was the first guy to postulate a round earth. I can show them early maps, depictions of medieval monarchs holding spheres to indicate their temporal authority, a Ptolemaic universe model in our local museum, doesn't matter.

Actually, this discussion is getting a bit out of hand. I would agree that when your kids are little, it is generally worthwhile for parents to spend as much time with them as possible, given the constraints of the lifestyle of the family. Everyone's wants and needs are going to differ, but if babies and toddlers are truly being pulled out of a ten hour day at childcare only to be placed in someone else's care for another hour and an half on a regular basis, then I personally would be really dissatisfied. I would find SOME way to combine my need to exercise, sleep, and work, with my need to be with my child.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:07pm

"Everyone's wants and needs are going to differ, but if babies and toddlers are truly being pulled out of a ten hour day at childcare only to be placed in someone else's care for another hour and an half on a regular basis, then I personally would be really dissatisfied. I would find SOME way to combine my need to exercise, sleep, and work, with my need to be with my child."


But everyone's needs re: work/life balance are different.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:11pm
I realize that. I support any kind of scenario that takes everyone's needs into account. I just don't think that *everyone's* needs are being met by having a very young child spending more than ten hours a day in two different childcare situations on a regular basis. And as the adult in charge, I would do everything I could to change that situation.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:14pm
I don't think it makes any difference.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:15pm
Yes, but my whole point is that that rarely happens.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:20pm
I can't believe that you think it's in the best interests of the very young children, given your long-standing claim that babies and young toddlers need up to 12 hours or sleep a night and ought to be sleeping in their own beds without being moved. How does that translate to it doesn't make any difference if the baby/toddler is in child care in two different places over the course of 11 and a half hours? Wouldn't the child's sleep patterns, at least, suffer. I am willing to concede that it doesn't make any difference to your children whether they spend any time with you during the course of a 24 hour period or not, after all, you know them and I don't, but most people's babies and toddlers do crave SOME time with their parents over the course of that period.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-11-2005
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:20pm

lol.

or there is *your* option.....as if your option is somehow better than mine? if i even tried rtw to any degree, do you really think that would eliviate some of the hours in his day? not by a long shot pumpkinangel..........he's salary not hourly for one thing. i could go on but it's clear that you and i live completely different lives.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 04-08-2005 - 4:20pm

Exactly and one's breaking point is another person's comfort point.


My biggest pet peeve is that the mother is being targeted as selfish for exercising after work while father is getting a free pass.


Devin used to work out in the mornings and the evenings. In order to get exercise

"I do not want to be a princess! I want to be myself"

Mallory (age 3)

      &nbs

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