Early Childcare - Infants and Nations at Risk

Dr Peter Cook assesses and presents the reader with valuable information regarding early child care. From looking at the biological link between mothers and their children to the research into the outcomes of early child care, Dr. Cook offers a reasonable critique, which is valuable to parents, politicians and child care workers. ‘This ...book should be dropped like leaflets all over the country to get past the ubiquitous network of the now entrenched daycare propagandists and reach the parents of tomorrow who have never heard the whole story.’ (Dr. Elliot Barker- President of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children).

EXTRACT
Why day care centres seldom meet infants' needs

Child care was invented for the convenience of adults not the needs or wishes of children. (Biddulph 1994). Research has consistently shown that infants of working mothers prefer their mothers to their day-care providers (Clarke-Stewart et al. 1985, pp. 152,162; Clarke-Stewart & Fein 1983; Rutter 1982), so if a baby's wants are indeed much the same as its needs, it follows that babies don't need day centre care. It is self-evident that the quality of care which a mother can provide for her baby and infant, as described above, cannot be dependably available from carers in a day care centre.

Talking of long-day group care only, Leach said "While they are babies or young toddlers, even the very best daycare seldom gives them anything they positively need, and being there all day and every day, often deprives them of what they need from mothers." (1994, p.70). The "vital continuous one-to-one attention can rarely be achieved in group care, however excellent the facility may be. Babies in their first year need one primary adult each, and while that may be inconvenient, it is not very surprising. Human beings do not give birth to litters but almost always to single babies. Women can only just feed two at a time (ask any mother of twins) and cannot single-handedly care for more (ask any mother of triplets). No amount of 'training' enables a nursery worker to do better."

And later "A comparative licensing study of American states showed that recommended ratios for infants ranged from 1:3 in three states to 1:8 in four states. And as all researchers acknowledge, even these figures may overestimate the adult attention available to each baby; as for example, when two adults have charge of six infants, one will often stay with them while the other cleans up." (Ibid p. 88.)

The work is poorly paid and undervalued and there is staff turnover of 42% per year in North America, and aides come and go more frequently. "It is not uncommon for a group of children to have three 'mother figures' in a year. If each baby is not fully attached to each successive caregiver, she will spend many days in limbo; if she is fully attached, she will spend many days in grief." (Ibid p.89.)