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Lord of the Tots
R. Alex Whitlock
There's apparently a
new study out that suggests that universal daycare may not be all its cracked up to be:
The growing labor force participation of women with small children in both the U.S. and Canada has led to calls for increased public financing for childcare. The optimality of public financing depends on a host of factors, such as the “crowd-out” of existing childcare arrangements, the impact on female labor supply, and the effects on child well-being. The introduction of universal, highly-subsidized childcare in Quebec in the late 1990s provides an opportunity to address these issues. We carefully analyze the impacts of Quebec’s “$5 per day childcare” program on childcare utilization, labor supply, and child (and parent) outcomes in two parent families. We find strong evidence of a shift into new childcare use, although approximately one third of the newly reported use appears to come from women who previously worked and had informal arrangements. The labor supply impact is highly significant, and our measured elasticity of 0.236 is slightly smaller than previous credible estimates. Finally, we uncover striking evidence that children are worse off in a variety of behavioral and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness. Our analysis also suggests that the new childcare program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships.
I think daycare, pre-school, and so on can be quite beneficial to youngsters. However, the results of this study don't particularly surprise me. One of the greatest problems I see in young people being raised is too much exposure to their peers. A kid who spends most of his time with kids will learn much of his value system from other kids. A kid who spends most of his time with adults will learn the value system of adults.
Universal daycare is an extention of our education system, which is very much geared towards kids spending most of their waking hours surrounded by other children. It doesn't have to be
Lord of the Flies to have a deleterious effect.
This brings up a couple of issues, most of all the question of what we can do about it. Homeschooling is an option for some, though I fear that can swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. It's also infeasible for a lot of households that simply cannot afford a parent to stay home and others that are not in a position to teach their children.
The other problem (well... maybe a problem) is The Cult of School. Kids not only spend in excess of 30 hours a week in school, but are actively encouraged to spend more time with social clubs, athletics, and so on. More and more, a child's social environment doesn't revolve around the household but around the schoolhouse. Then again, who
does want to spend more time with your parents at that age?
[via Douthat]
Observations
I think kids tend to learn most everything from their parents. We like to watch those Nanny shows on TV from time to time. It amazes me how people just don't seem to know how to take care of children. You see the complete range of yelling and spanking for every little thing to the other side of things such as coddling their children too much. You know, those parents that think they need to jump whenever a child cries.
Although I agree that kids pick up stuff from their peers, I don't think it's a problem for kids to spend time at daycares, etc. It's part of the learning experience. Attempting to keep kids from picking things up by denying them time away is a little odd.
I agree with you about kissing a kid's booboo every time he falls and cries is not good and constant explicit guidance was not what I was trying to get at. I do disagree, however, with the notion that kids learn "most everything", or even most things, from their parents.
I don't think I'm being clear on my motivations. I don't think that you should keep kids out of daycare to deny them experience in the 'real world.' Introduction to the real world is an important aspect of the maturation process. The problem is that there needs to be more of a counterbalance at home than I believe exists much of the time. I would even agree that some time in daycare is on the whole a positive thing. However, all other things being equal putting them there for 40 hours a week is a negative. Parents don't always have a choice in the matter if they want to feed their addictions to food and shelter, but on the whole I would consider the increased prevalence of daycare (exemplified by proposals in Canada and California) to be a negative development.
Part of it I think is that we've bought into the Quality Time Falacy, which is that we don't have to spend as much time with the kids as long as the time we do spend is "quality time." I'm inclined to say that it's all quality time. Even the time you spend in the same room doing two completely different things. Kids learn not only by what their taught, but by exposure. Having more exposure to peers than to parents, particularly in the 2-14 years, is teaching the wrong lessons.
Life lessons come in all flavors. I believe as long as a parent is active in a child's life (good or bad) it has quite a bit of influence on that child. They either mimic those actions, or strive to be different.
Even kids with distant parents, raised by nannies, daycares, or even those with 2 parents and one is always away, and even when they are home, they are not active with their kids. I think each of these situations, directly related to the parents has a lasting effect on the child more so than anything they pickup outside the house. Sure, kids pick things up from outside sources, I'm not arguing that, but I think the deep effects still come from the parents. It all depends on which direction they choose to go with it.
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