3 ms·
Your phrasing betrays your bias. Having kids in childcare is not the downfall of society, and in some ways is similar to The Way Things Used To Be. My youngest
by nkrisc 28d ago
Your phrasing betrays your bias.
Having kids in childcare is not the downfall of society, and in some ways is similar to The Way Things Used To Be. My youngest goes to pre-school childcare where he gets to interact with kids and parents from his local community whom we see outside of childcare as well. He sees his “teacher” when he walks with me and his older brother to his school because her daughter goes to the same school as his brother. The people who work there are part of the community as well.
Childcare can be the modern form of the village collectively caring for the children so that not every parent is busy with child-rearing all the time.
It’s also good for kids to spend time interacting with people who aren’t part of their immediate family.
Not every childcare program is created equal, but there is a place and need for good ones.
Not once has it ever felt like “dumping him in an institution”. Your kids do not need you 100% of the time, and usually it’s better they’re not with you 100% of the time.
- SoftTalker 28d agoSure, and epecially when the child is a bit older then introducing a "preschool" situation for a few hours a day is probably valuable. But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not.
- estearum 28d agoI would bet that approximately 100% of people advocating for funded childcare programs++ would want to avoid the "putting infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day" scenario.
- moduspol 28d agoIn what way? I've seen many people advocate for universal childcare as a way to get mom back to working full time as quickly as possible. I've also seen it framed as a way of leveling the playing field, so women are less disadvantaged from men as a result of childbirth / care. I find that, if anything, there is little to no stigma to getting your child in daycare ASAP after maternity leave ends and going back to working full time. That's "infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day".
- jimbokun 28d agoWhy do you think that?
- greenowl 28d agoIt's absolutely bonkers how normalized infant and toddler daycare has become in today's society.
- MaxHoppersGhost 28d agoIt's honestly very sad to me.
- greenowl 28d agoThe saddest part to me is when families feel "forced" into full time daycare. As if there was no choice other than both parents continuing to work full time jobs.
- triceratops 28d agoI kinda think at least some form of part-time toddler daycare is necessary. For the stay-at-home parent's sanity.
- hdgvhicv 28d agoIf it were more common than you’d have your Neighbours kid for a few hours while they have some sanity and vice versa. This is a long way from 10 hours a day of outsourcing when the kid is only awake for 12 hours. Childcare is for the benefit of the companies who can then extract value from more workers.
- triceratops 27d ago100% agree if you have suitable neighbors (parents with similar age children) this is an ideal arrangement. Not everyone is so lucky.
- hdgvhicv 26d agoBecause most nearby parents will be working 8 hours plus a day and shipping the kids to full time childcare I was lucky with my kids, we don’t live somewhere like London, we could book 4 hour periods a couple of times a week and didn’t need two full time workers.
- danans 28d ago> But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not. That's a different problem that would be better addressed by mandatory paid parental leave and universal healthcare - so new parents can afford not to work while their child is an infant.
- greenowl 28d ago8-10 hours a day in a daycare is a bad idea for much longer than just the infant stage.
- barbazoo 28d agoMy kids are around so many other kids, interacting, playing, arguing, sometimes fighting (hands to yourself!), they are around so many caring adults that live nearby, we talk to them every time we see them. I know how lucky we are. I bet people that say dumping your kid at an institution have no idea how nice life could be in that regard.
- jimbokun 28d agoThat certainly doesn’t sound like an institution to me.
- _blackhawk_ 28d agoWhat is an institution if not a collection of people?
- jimbokun 28d agoFamily, community, nation are all collections of people that are not institutions.
- deleted 28d ago[deleted]
- adamrezich 28d agoAll of my friends' kids who are in daycare get sick frequently. I work on the top floor of a building that has a YMCA daycare on many of the bottom floors, and I often get sick passing through there on the way to work.
- nkrisc 28d agoYes, kids pass germ to each other. This will happen any time lots of kids are in one place.
- danans 28d ago> But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not. Unless the child is immunosuppressed, outside of a novel pandemic scenario, a vaccinated child is not likely to contract a very serious infection beyond the common cold or flu by being in childcare. Much of that can be mitigated by giving parents the flexibility (sick leave) to keep their children home while ill. > I work on the top floor of a building that has a YMCA daycare on many of the bottom floors, and I often get sick passing through there on the way to work. Perhaps you are uniquely susceptible? I don't think this generalizes to most people if they practice public hygiene habits like washing your hands when arriving at the office.
- adamrezich 28d agoI dunno man my wife takes care of our one-year-old not just staying at home but going to the library and stores and the nearby petting zoo and stuff, and he's only been sick once, after a long day of air travel where my wife and I got sick as well—whereas, friends' daycare'd kids are sick all the time, constantly having runny noses and such. Just something I've noticed, is all. Outside of society being oriented around having my wife work and sending our son to daycare rather than having her raise him at home, everything's going great so far, one year in.
- danans 28d ago> whereas, friends' daycare'd kids are sick all the time, constantly having runny noses and s Probably just the common cold most of the time. My nose was runny through most of my childhood too. And kids are snotty - always have been - it's not necessarily a condition that needs to be fixed. If it's bothersome to you, then of course avoid group childcare. Also, some diseases like chicken pox are preferable to contract as a child and gain immunity to then - since they are far worse symptomatically to contract as an adult.
- MaxHoppersGhost 28d agoYes, community raising of children is how it "used to be" but dropping your kids off for 8-10 hours a day to be raised by absolute strangers with zero ties to your family and spending time with other kids who have zero familial ties to you as well and maybe even no community ties is not the same at all.
- undersuit 28d agoHow do they have no community ties? Did you drive the children 20 miles away from home?
- jimbokun 28d agoHow well does the average parent know the other parents and children on the first day dropping their kid off at daycare?
- footy 28d agoI'm not a parent but my niece and nephew (different parents) both go to daycare. My sister knew many of the parents at her son's daycare already, they live in the same neighbourhood. My nephew knew the children of those parents too. He had his little daycare friends before he started daycare at 18mo. My sister has lived in the same city all her life, some of the parents involved she's known for 30 years. I'm not as close to my sister in law as I am my sister, but I know that when my niece started daycare they knew some kids and parents from the playground already. It doesn't strike me as bizarre that someone would know people in their community who are in a similar life stage.
- mrguyorama 28d agoOn the first day? Barely, though in "good" daycares, you usually have a connection because placement is competitive and you got in through nepotism. After a couple months? If you don't know the other kids by name and some other parents, you may have a bad daycare full of people who do not care. My sister ran a fairly renowned daycare for over a decade. She ended up the caretaker for the children of many friends, and gained many friends of the children she helped raise. The daycare was a massive part of their community. It allowed the parents to function in modern society while ensuring their child was in the care of, essentially, an expert.
- jimbokun 28d agoAnd your bias is that if institutionalized child care is shown to lead to worse outcomes than parents caring for their own children, you will feel a lot of personal guilt.