The Child Care Debate

The Child Care Debate

"It irritates me that so many women think they are entitled to both brilliant, unimpeded careers and medals for being the world's greatest mothers. You cannot have it both ways," states Tunku Varadarajan in his article, "A Mother's Love." (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=90000479) At issue - a prescriptive issue - in Mr. Varadarajan's article is the debate over child-care. Are children who are placed in day care receiving the same quality of care they would have received at home with their mothers?

According to Public Agenda Online (http://www.publicagenda.org/), in 1960, 88 percent of all children lived with both parents and fewer than 20% of all mothers worked outside of the home. In 1998, only 68% of children lived with both parents and 61% of mothers worked at least part time. With the increase in two-income families and single parent families, child-care has changed over the last 40 years. For Mr. Varadarajan the increased need for day care has less to do with the changing structure of the family and more to do with a woman's need for self-fulfillment. "... a working woman may attend to her professional needs, which are now deemed to be the same as a working man's (or father's)" While the author concedes that for some mothers working is a financial necessity, he questions the motives and morality of working mothers, mothers who choose to work are selfish and their "child's right to unabbreviated maternal care" is sacrificed.

A recent study from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development is the primary evidence Mr. Varadarajan provides in support of his argument. However, Mr. Varadarajan's article presents only one aspect of the study's conclusions, namely, children who are placed in child-care for more than 30 hours a week are three times more likely to show behavioral problems in kindergarten as those cared for by their mothers. But according to the study's authors, those children who spent more time in day care were still in the normal range of behavior: an important conclusion Mr. Varadarajan does not include in his summary of the study's data. Also noted by the study's author, Sarah Friedman, is that quantity of time in daycare may not be the cause of behavioral problems, in spite of the statistical link. Ms. Friedman states that there may be a rival cause: "the cause may be the fact that childcare providers are trained to focus on cognitive and achievement skills and not on self-regulation and emotional regulation and ability to deal with frustration.