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Sorry - the argument of who is a better parent is one I refuse to engage in. I know wonderful parents who have had their children in daycare, and I know horrible parents who have. I know wonderful SAH Mom's and Dad's...and I've known dreadful ones. "Quality" childcare can actually be very beneficial for children.
Taxes alone are not the culprit... take a look at healthcare costs, take a look at home costs, auto insurance, etc... it's not easy to live on 1 salary - not only in NJ - from what I gather in many parts of the US.
There are different answers for every family.
funny thing is, mike and i have gone back and forth on this very topic, and he gave me props for this
I hope you didn't call Beyond Basic learning.... they suck and are expensive. I used to work there and the director is a total hypocrite and only cares about money. She also treated her staff like crap. Please don't go there. People didn't see what happened behind closed doors.
funny thing is, mike and i have gone back and forth on this very topic, and he gave me props for this
This is a very sophisticated argument, to be sure. However, I think the points I made in my last post are very good ones.
Am I in favor of welfare for single parents? Of course I'm not. I think that there is an element of irresponsibility that has permeated our society. It is especially more pronounced in New Mexico than it is in NJ. The problem is that people are having kids, consequences be damned. It's part of a greater societal problem, one that has its roots in lack of self restraint. Lack of restraint having unprotected sex, for instance, which leads to the children being produced in the first place. Or, the want of having a child whether one can afford to have the child or not. Of course we see this a part of a greater manifestation of the problem. Credit card debt and bankruptcies are at an all time high, in large measure, because people want stuff, and they want it now. The government, a fine example they set, they lead the way, borrow and spend, right? So, it's an across the board indictment, really, of this fading republic.
Now you also mention about the predictability of kids in school who have been reared in a day care center versus at home, with 100% certainty. I can't predict anything with 100% certainty. However, there are actuarials who are employed by insurance companies to set thresholds of risks vs insurability. Perfect example of the under 25 year olds or males vs females in car insurance. There is no 100% certainty that one driver will have a better capacity to operate a motor vehicle any better than another, but statistically, there is a variance. Just as this variance exists, so too does between children raised by stay at home parents versus child care centers, when it comes to discipline: https://secc.rti.org/
According to the study, children raised in child care centers are more prone to disobedience by the time they reach 6th grade than those who are not. I am not the messenger with this report, so don't shoot me!!
Who would go on a webboard asking for pricing and then say "oh my god, I've never heard of that and it's practically next door-maybe I should have another"?
I don't know how the determination was made, but somehow, the capacity for children to learn, reading, spelling etc, and retain it, has been determined to be approximately 5 years old. I will grant you, there is likely a variance, for some children it could be 6, for others maybe 4, however, from ages 0 to 2-3, the ability to for a child to digest curriculum is just not there. These babies have to have their diapers changed, to be held by their parents, etc. I'm not so sure this is even a debatable issue. This is where I think upbringing by a parent at all times is critical. I think that when a child has the ability to focus in a learning environment, you are crossing some sort of an emotional threshold. Again, this was determined a while ago to be 5 years old. My only point is that in the beginning, parents should be the exclusive caregivers, and I am not limiting it to mother or father, it's not a gender argument. I just think the concept of a parent exclusively raising their children post-birth is such an obvious one. Why? Because babies are evolving each and every day at an almost logarthimic rate. I think during this time these babies deserve to be influenced by people who matter the most, which, again, is the parents.
Mike,
I respectfully disagree. Have you ever been in and spent time in a quality childcare program?
Just like at home, infants are constantly learning from the world around them in a childcare center. The centers I worked in had a wonderful curriculum filled with daily activities that are developmentally appropriate for each age group. On top of that we gave parents daily reports and weekly notes detailing what we were doing in each core area.
While I understand and respect your opinion, I think you should broaden your horizons and learn more about what young children are typically capable of learning. You may be surprised by active learning that goes on in all the age groups.
Actually I know many kindergarten teachers that are public school teachers who tell me.....they KNOW the children who have been in preschool because they are much more advanced both educationally and socially.
*Again*, this is what I have been told, no scientific numbers or studies to cite here.
This is a very sophisticated argument, to be sure. However, I think the points I made in my last post are very good ones.
The problem is that people are having kids, consequences be damned. It's part of a greater societal problem, one that has its roots in lack of self restraint. Lack of restraint having unprotected sex, for instance, which leads to the children being produced in the first place. Or, the want of having a child whether one can afford to have the child or not.
According to the study, children raised in child care centers are more prone to disobedience by the time they reach 6th grade than those who are not. I am not the messenger with this report, so don't shoot me!!
As a Single Mom By Choice and a teacher I'm going to jump in here. I think Mike is right in that, in many cases a parent is the best choice for infant child care, BUT, it is not the only good choice. There is quality child care out there and parenting still starts at home. I work in an area where a good majority of my kids are cared for by a primary parent. However, I can also say that in many of these cases the parenting is poor and the child would probably have been better off in an alternative care setting.
Now, as a parent, my daughter's personality is fully reflective of my parenting. She is 4 years old and during my time with her she has learned to be kind, considerate, a team player. When she comes home with behavior that she has observed in day care (and this started at an early age) I was the one to correct it. Now you could say if she wasn't in day care she wouldn't be picking up behaviors I do not agree with but there are lots of other things she wouldn't get either.
Mike, do not confuse absentee parenting with day care. If a child is put in day care and then comes home to parent's that are too busy or too self absorbed to parent than those parents are unfit. But if a parent understands the role of good day care, then they also understand good parenting.
So, talk to me in 10 years and I'll let you know if I think day care was a mistake. Of course, it means my child will have to answer the question...would it have been better not to have been born at all, because I couldn't stay home to take care of you?
Who would go on a webboard asking for pricing and then say "oh my god, I've never heard of that and it's practically next door-maybe I should have another"?
It sounds like someone shopping for a dog kennel.
I think that may have been tounge in cheek....
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. Thanks for letting me know.
