Day Care

[Beet]

Don's views are a bit extreme. I do not believe that a child in day care is equivalent to a child that simply does not have any parent or guardian at all. Nor do I believe that a family that does not have a stay-at-home parent will necessarily be destroyed, or that civilization will necessarily collapse if everyone does not choose to be a stay-at-home parent. Nor do I believe that day care is inherently destructive to the lives of children. There is no simple formula that can guarantee the success--or indeed failure, of any child. There are however some core guiding principles that on the whole make for a successful citizen, and these are seemingly abstract factors including instilled personal discipline, a compass of values, and a community of support. The modern nuclear family is not an island and was never intended to be an island. This requires in my view a well-established community with a solid and constructive culture.

[Beet]

It does depend on the situation and the provider, of course, but generally I see day care as a negative thing, mostly because we're inventing day care where it really doesn't exist nowadays, ie: in classrooms, preschools, playdates, etc.

Far too many parents today view their children as a burden rather than a blessing.  They're willing to send them to preschool when they're two or three years old, not because it enriches the kids' lives, but because it's an easy form of day care for the parent.  Many parents are content to let television do the parenting, or a teacher take care of their children, rather than putting forth the effort required to be a decent parent.

Very good comments as always J-Mann. 

I find that many of the "day care is wonderful" type people have no idea what raising kids is really all about.  They think of it as simply babysitting, as in keeping them occupied and from playing in the street for a few hours.  There seems to be little appreciation from these people of how much time goes into teaching kids about life, providing guidance, character development, etc.  This is something that must be done primarily by parents, and if they're never around or around very little, their kids are going to be at a big deficit.

I'm not suggesting that it is impossible to do these things if both parents work and the kid is in day care.  But the need for it should be recognized, and the pro-day care feminist types generally do not recognize this need.

I disagree. You could call me a "pro-feminist day care type" but I do recognize the need. After all, though not all of us have been on the giving end we have all been on the receiving end.

[Beet]

I disagree. You could call me a "pro-feminist day care type" but I do recognize the need. After all, though not all of us have been on the giving end we have all been on the receiving end.

Actually not everybody has been on the receiving end, and that is part of the problem.

Well, we all received something, whether that something is more defined by lack of substance than otherwise, and we all draw own personal lessons from that (hopefully, though most people by adulthood I think have a good grasp of the circumstances of their upbringing and those things which were important for, or missing from, it).

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This is true, especially for younger people, though most people as they grow older gradually realize this even if they haven't necessarily been parents before.

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Which is why day care is helpful. But it really depends how you define "good parent". I define a good parent as someone who fulfills whatever role is necessary to bring up a child in a physically and mentally healthy way. If day care can help the parent fulfill this role, while by working the parent can improve the financial status of the family, I would not say they have been any worse of a parent than one that stayed at home; depending on the importance of finances and how skilled they are at integrating their child into a community of peers, they might be a better one. As for parents who put their kids in day care or other activities simply to take off a burden, this is a tragic situation, but the problem lies in their general attitude towards childrearing and would manifest itself regardless of the availability of day care.

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Good day care, like good education, does not replace good parenting (nor was it ever meant to), though it can complement it... and as such it works best when there is a strong overlap between the day care activities and the parent: the day care is located in a community where the family lives; the other children in the day care are the same children the child does or will attend school with; the values and culture created in the day care is compatible with the family and community's. This allows the day care to fulfill a certain extra-familial, community-building role, which can also be fulfilled, though not always, by other institutions: church groups, close neighborhoods, and non-day care afterschool activities.

[Beet]

thefactor, I can't disagree with anything you say, really.  I would just point out that many of those who are most favorable toward day care do consider it a substitute, rather than a supplement, for good parenting, and are generally in favor of subcontracting parental responsibilities from the home to institutions like schools, day care centers, etc.  I view this as a very negative thing.

These are the same people who think fathers should simply send a support check every month.  Their view of parenting is very limited and distorted, to say the least.

This doesn't mean that good day care is not sometimes the best solution for certain kids.  But I am just very very wary of the "day care" lobby.

Well I don't disagree with these points, either, though it's not as simple as a difference between theory and practice. On the whole, there is a cultural issue of responsibility that has plagued this country and is responsible for a huge part of support for social conservatism. It arises from the explosion of consumerism and changes in people's psychologies due to such large increases in wealth. Culture needs to adjust to this, and it's taking a while (though some progress is being made) but this adjustment can't just be a wholesale backlash against social progress.

[Beet]

thefactor, I can't disagree with anything you say, really.  I would just point out that many of those who are most favorable toward day care do consider it a substitute, rather than a supplement, for good parenting, and are generally in favor of subcontracting parental responsibilities from the home to institutions like schools, day care centers, etc.  I view this as a very negative thing.

These are the same people who think fathers should simply send a support check every month.  Their view of parenting is very limited and distorted, to say the least.

This doesn't mean that good day care is not sometimes the best solution for certain kids.  But I am just very very wary of the "day care" lobby.

Well I don't disagree with these points, either, though it's not as simple as a difference between theory and practice. On the whole, there is a cultural issue of responsibility that has plagued this country and is responsible for a huge part of support for social conservatism. It arises from the explosion of consumerism and changes in people's psychologies due to such large increases in wealth. Culture needs to adjust to this, and it's taking a while (though some progress is being made) but this adjustment can't just be a wholesale backlash against social progress.

I don't consider having some reservations about substituting day care for parenting as a backlash against "social progress."  I love the way some liberals define "progress" in terms of how far they have advanced their agenda, and consider any other agenda reactionary.  Liberals don't have the market cornered on "progress" and much of the "progress" that has been delivered by left-wing ideology has been highly deleterious and negative.  I don't consider high divorce rates, high rates of children born to unmarried mothers, high rates of fatherlessness, etc. and all the ills associated with these factors as "progress."

Well, progress denotes from movement toward improvement, whereas conservatism denotes resistance to such. For example, availability of day care improves the resources available to parents, and, assuming they are used responsibly, can actually be a positive aid to them. In the long view of things these terms are still meaningful when you look at the nominal "liberal" and "conservative" positions today, though arguably Bush hasn't exactly been the most traditionally conservative president on economic and foreign policy affairs.

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I consider from anectodal evidence that the problem of personal irresponsibility has become more pronounced over the past half century or so; all your examples of fatherlessness, childbirth out of wedlock, and high divorce rates have increased during that time. I think this is a function of an attitude that derives from wealth, an attitude which embraces immediate gratification. The reason is that poverty imposes certain constraints on the individual, I think, including hard work and a certain humility, mostly due to the lifestyle that is required when one is relatively poor. But the great amount of wealth created by Keynesian economics completely revolutionized this while the advertising and marketing industry is geared toward self-satisfaction. This is a huge change and requires a period of adjustment.

[Beet]

I find it hard to agree with your thesis that wealth leads to irresponsible responsible behavior, necessarily.  I think that unearned wealth generally does, but for most of us who are reasonably well off, our wealth is earned, and would not have been earned in the absence of responsible behavior.

That is true, I was speaking more of unearned wealth inherited from older generations (or handed down in the form of traditional welfare), and I don't think wealth necessarily leads to any behavior (god forbid I sound like a marxist ). But in the case of the U.S., in the socially irresponsible things you were talking about, I think societal wealth was a necessary precondition for them.

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I agree with you here.