Data on the effects of daycare

[LancierDombre]

I know that Stef has talked negatively about the effects of daycare in many of the shows.  I'm trying to find the data that supports that position.  Is that aggregated under one of the "Truth About" presentations or is it just spread around?  I'd really appreciate some pointers to the research on how daycare affects children, whether it be positive, negative, or neutral.

 

The reason why this is important to me is because my girlfriend and I have been discussing how we would want to take care of the kids if we were to choose to get married and start a family.  I expressed my misgivings about the idea of giving our children to low wage workers for most of the day.  I didn't have any solid data on hand to point her to when we were having this conversation though.  She seems to think that it's alright because she was put in daycare when she was very little, and she turned alright.  And later, after her younger sister developed health problems, her mom quit her job and ran a daycare service out of their house so that she could stay close.  Naturally, she doesn't see an issue with it as long as you choose a good service.

 

Unless I have solid data to back me up, I don't think it will be productive to push back much on this so if anyone has some good sources to share on the subject I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks.

[fer]

Even if day cares had no negative effects on the emotional development of the child, why is the stay at home mom (or dad) not an option?

 

Her positive regard towards day cares raises a red flag to me. Has she tried to research into the subject by herself after your conversations? or did she just dismiss it?

 

Quick google search:

http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/43/the-effects-of-day-care-on-the-social-emotional-development-of-children

http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/37/daycare-and-childrens-well-being

[LancierDombre]

Even if day cares had no negative effects on the emotional development of the child, why is the stay at home mom (or dad) not an option?

 

Her positive regard towards day cares raises a red flag to me. Has she tried to research into the subject by herself after your conversations? or did she just dismiss it?

 

Quick google search:

http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/43/the-effects-of-day-care-on-the-social-emotional-development-of-children

http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/37/daycare-and-childrens-well-being

 

I have to admit, it shocked me a bit too and I wasn't quite prepared for the conversation.  I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised though.  I guess I'm actually going to have to put my foot down on this one.  One of us will have to sacrifice career for the kids if this is going to work, and I make a lot more money than she does.  Unless she can prove the alleged positive effects of daycare she thinks exist, she has to either pick which one of use will be the childcare provider or we'll just have to admit we're at an impass on this. :-(

 

What you presented looks promising but I was hoping for something that has been verified as being solid research.  I'm going to have to dig into these to make sure these are trustworthy results.

[fer]

I'm sorry about the situation, I hope you can both work it out.

Have you considered calling into the show? It would be an interesting topic.

[LancierDombre]

I'm sorry about the situation, I hope you can both work it out.

 

Have you considered calling into the show? It would be an interesting topic.

 

Thanks

 

Calling in is a possibility.  She was actually thinking about calling in on a different but tangentially related question.  I'd like to actually have that discussion myself though.

 

It's just aggravating though.  I care enough about this that I'd be willing to be the stay at home parent, except that I'm doubtful that she can support us on her income.  The tragedy of it though is that if I pursued a career that would earn me more money and be less personally satisfying because I knew I'd be expected to be the bread winner.  She definitely could have gone for a higher paying career - she's certainly smart enough - but chose one that she enjoyed more.

[Kurtis]

Have you gone through the collection of Stef's shows titled "Philosophical Parenting - The Series from Freedomain Radio" ?  This link is for itunes, but my android podcast program (Pocket Casts) also found the collection.  Hard to go through all this and come out with any type of favourable view on day care.

 

 

This is what instigated my exploration into parenting styles, which resulted with choosing Whole Life Unschooling for my future children.  

Another podcast that was very helpful in introducing these ideas to my partner was The Unschooling Life Podcast.

 

Spend the time looking into this very important subject and you will find plenty of data.

[LancierDombre]

I listened through the philosophical parenting series.  It's nice but I've heard all of these theoretical arguments against daycare before.  Theory is great but if you don't have solid empirical evidence to support that theory, it is a much weaker guide for making decisions.  My girlfriend and I are both engineers, so results matter and we think in terms of trade-offs.

 

​In this call for research thread ( https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/) a user named cab21 cites research that suggests I may be overreacting here.

Generally speaking, the studies suggest that there is no difference between the emotional and social development of children who receive day care and those who stay at home, as long as the day care service is of good quality and the families offer reasonable levels of attention to the children. Regarding intellectual development, day care attention seems to act as a protecting factor for children from lower socioeconomic level families who are at higher social risk.

I also did a quick search of the course guidebooks for the Great Course's series on "Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids that Thrive" and "Scientific Secrets for Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids".  From the outlines, neither course seems to say much about daycare other than that Montessori approach is preferable.  Is this proof of anything?  No, I still have a lot of reading to do yet.

 

So some examples of trade-offs worth considering are:

• Both my girlfriend and I are 30 with masters degrees and careers.  I make significantly more than her but she still makes a decent amount of money.  If she were to drop out of the work force completely for a few years it would mostly destroy her human capitol in a way that even switching to part-time wouldn't.  If the above cited research is accurate, provided we could find a quality provider in our price range, it might be better off in the long run to have the extra income because we could afford better schooling for later in life.  Not only that, but it would mean that the family wouldn't be in as much financial jeopardy if something were to happen to me - which isn't an insignificant concern considering my congenital heart problem.
• If just living on just one income would mean that we have to live in a worse neighborhood.  What effect would that have on the children's well being and how would that compare to some daycare?
• Let's say my girlfriend and I come to an impasse and break up over this.  What if the only women I could find that would be okay with the stay-at-home wife thing were very religious, had a lower IQ, or for some reason were just less compatible with me than my current girlfriend in other ways.  Would that really be better for my hypothetical children?  Is it worth being with someone who I might otherwise have less respect for just because they are willing to stay home with the kids?  Sure, maybe I might find someone better if I broke up with my girlfriend but that's far from certain.

In past discussions, my girlfriend has said that she would have been a lot more open to being the stay-at-home mom for a while in her early 20's.  If I could turn back time and rearrange my life so that we would have met then I'd do that, but that's not an option.  We didn't meet until about a year ago, and now that she's been through grad school and finally has a career going, it's really hard to blame her for not wanting to give that up.  We're in the situation we're in now, and we have to make the trade-offs that make the most sense.

 

I appreciate all of the Google searches and things that I've found today, but the problem is I'll need to scrutinize them to make sure their methods are appropriate and the conclusions are valid.  I was hoping Stef and Mike or someone had a body of work that they already vetted but so far no luck.  As Mike has said in the past, there is an awful lot of junk science and advocacy research out there - especially in controversial issues like this - and we need to be weary of confirmation bias and group think.

[Koroviev]

I don't have any specific research but just wanted to add my 2 cents:

First, no one is ever going to be as invested in raising your children correctly as you and your spouse are.

Second, most daycare workers are minimum wage employees who are only there for the paycheck and daycare has a huge turnover rate so there is very little consistency.

Third, is the "extra" money you'll make worth the extra money you'll spend for both of you to have a job (cost of daycare, car, gas, insurance, clothes, additional medical expenses from being introduced to all of the other kids' bacteria, etc.).

Fourth, daycare (as well as public school, etc.) means that the only time you get to spend with your kids is extremely stressful. in the mornings you're tied to a schedule and rushing out the door so no one's late, and in the evenings you're rushing home so you can hurry up and get dinner, bath, and into bed. All of which puts a lot of stress on both the kids and the parents.

Fifth, people (should!) have children because they want to spend time with them and help them grow into the best people they can, why even have children if you have to have someone else to raise them.

Lastly, and I'm not meaning this as a personal attack, but if your priorities are to make more money then make more money but don't mask it under the guise of "it's what's best for the children." Children don't need money or things they need their parents.

 

Also, watch for bias when you're researching the feeling I've gotten so far is that you want to not find research that supports one of you staying home with your children so that the excuse of "there's no research proving one way or the other" will seem valid. Make sure you're putting as much effort into the benefits of staying home and the negatives of daycare as you are the benefits of daycare and the negatives of staying home. You can just as easily be a stay at home parent as your girlfriend can.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I think it is a moral concern. You can't be positively sure as you can as a stay-at-home parent that the child will not be abused at daycare. Children are extremely delicate, especially in the early years. Why would you hand over a living breathing china doll to strangers? You take your own risks, but when you have a child you are managing risks for someone who is helpless and infinitely more vulnerable than you. You are there to maintain their safety at all costs, because if you don't, or if you fail to... would you really want to be that guy?

 

If there is any available option which is both do-able and minimizes risk for the child of being abused, besides all the wonderful things that will come from it in the long term ( great relationship where lots of time is spent with one another), then are you really going to stare your daughter in the eyes when you are older and say with humility that you chose money over being with her in her most primary years of growing? If you are wrong that it was the right thing to do, then you will lose credibility with your child.

 

I had a small idea, maybe you can show her Isabella (Bad Philosophy Show!) to let her see the delight that exists in the voice of a child raised with stay-home parents. If her reaction is negative, you could console her about her childhood. But if she is defensive to that it will be a big red flag in terms of unacknowledged trauma. I have another half to this post which you might want to digest separately:

 

 

 

By the way, your child will have the opportunity to go to school! But it has to be spontaneous choice not deliberately planned, and in some sense it must involve his/her commitment to the idea. The gravity of such a decision to make for a child is wise not to be given at toddler-hood, since they have more awareness and forethought at older ages. Simply put, they can comprehend the full range of their choices the more they get older.

 

That is why stay-at-home for the first five years is so essential, because you are literally developing the bond and environment for the child to become accustomed to just by virtue of being with them consistently. In absence of that, the child will not ever re-learn to develop a consistent bond in the way it was supposed to be done in the first years. The research (ACE) seems to say that if it doesn't develop in a secure and predictable way that there will be somewhat predictable negative consequences from this (this is apart from the moral case).

 

Also, a certain amount of time in day-care will imply the same symptoms as maternal abandonment. Were you aware of that, or should I help you out finding the source?

 

 

[LancierDombre]

I apologize ahead of time if I come across as argumentative here, but if I need to push back if I see an obvious counter-argument. Conversations in which everyone agrees tend to be less productive, I find. Also, it’s difficult to hammer this stuff out over lunch :-)
 

I don't have any specific research but just wanted to add my 2 cents:
First, no one is ever going to be as invested in raising your children correctly as you and your spouse are.

Agreed, but it doesn't follow that we have to completely eschew any use of daycare.

My girlfriend isn't saying she needs to work full time. She's certainly willing to make career sacrifices and go to part time for a while, etc... But she doesn't want to drop out of the workforce entirely. Not only that but there will be grandparents, etc… And she’d be willing to reconsider things if I can prove that this would actually have a serious negative impact on the children. It has to be pretty rock solid though.
 

Second, most daycare workers are minimum wage employees who are only there for the paycheck and daycare has a huge turnover rate so there is very little consistency.

I'm aware of this. I have dated a daycare worker once, and she wasn’t too bright either. However, most is not all. My girlfriend went into daycare before her younger sister was born, and then her mom opened up a daycare in their own home because of her sister's health issues. It was one of the highest ranked daycares in the state and they're still friends with a lot of the customers. The children who were in the daycare are almost thought of as cousins by my girlfriend. I've met some of these kids in fact, they're grown up and they don't seem damaged to me. In fact, they seemed happier, better adjusted and with more opportunity than I had at their age.

I didn't go to daycare, my girlfriend did. I have an ACE score of 3 (4 if you count my parent's divorce which happened after I turned 18), my girlfriend has an ACE score of 0. I was spanked when I was very little (until about 5). My girlfriend was never spanked. While I was going to public school and being chastised for raising my hand too enthusiastically and being forced to read boring stories about pre-teen girl angst, she was going to a private Montessori school where she could learn what she wanted at her own pace. While I was sleeping with a knife hidden near my bed out of fear that my older half-brother would take drugs and try to kill us again, she was traveling the world as a student ambassador. Watching TV and playing videogames were the normal after school activities in my house. TV and videogames were limited in her family, they played scrabble and other mind-exercising games - as a family. At least two of my "friends" from highschool and one close acquaintance have done time in prison and I don't really have any friends from the community college where I did most of my undergrad because I was too busy working my ass off to get noticed and get into a major tech company. She went to a college that she's actually proud to say she went to and where she made great friends and has positive memories.

These are two examples of actual childhoods. One went to daycare, the other didn't. Whose childhood do you honestly think was healthier though?

Why can’t I just find a good girl who wants to be a stay-at-home mom? I probably dated about 30 women - just went out with a few times, not sex - before I met my current girlfriend. She’s really the first one I’ve ever thought seriously about starting a family with. I’m going to be 31 years old in a couple of months. In my experience, single women in my age group either have careers or have made catastrophic mistakes. So where am I supposed to look for this cadre of quality, atheistic, stay-at-home mom’s?
 

Third, is the "extra" money you'll make worth the extra money you'll spend for both of you to have a job (cost of daycare, car, gas, insurance, clothes, additional medical expenses from being introduced to all of the other kids' bacteria, etc.).

I don't know if it would be worth it is the point. You need data to make rational decisions about trade-offs. From a purely monetary perspective, probably yes in the long run. And that’s because if one of us completely drops out of the workforce certifications expires etc, and it takes a lot to get back in.

Also, as previously stated, I don’t want to put her in a position in which she is completely dependent on me for income because of my heart condition.
 

Fourth, daycare (as well as public school, etc.) means that the only time you get to spend with your kids is extremely stressful. in the mornings you're tied to a schedule and rushing out the door so no one's late, and in the evenings you're rushing home so you can hurry up and get dinner, bath, and into bed. All of which puts a lot of stress on both the kids and the parents.

Compared to what? Being around low rent people and dealing with religious indoctrination is also extremely stressful. I know that from experience.

In computer architecture there is a concept called Amdahl's Law, which describes the theoretical improvements in latency that can achieve by optimizing certain parts of the architecture. Basically, the lesson is that you shouldn’t waste resources optimizing something that will have less of an impact over something that will have more of an impact. Stef himself admitted during his interview with Charles Murray (I think it was) that the data shows that genetics seems to contribute more to life outcomes than anything, so long as the parenting is “good enough”. My girlfriend has an IQ that is over 3 standard deviations above the mean (higher than at least 99.8% of the population). As we know, IQ is one of the best predictors of life outcomes and has a heritability factor between 0.5 and 0.8.

So here is what I'm looking at with my girlfriend:
High IQ: Check
Atheist: Check
Supportive Family: Check
Not a Lefty: Check
We enjoy each other's company: Check
We have high level conversations: Check
Physically and emotionally healthy: Check
She’s seriously considering starting a family with me: Check
Wants to be a stay-at-home mom: Not quite, but willing to make career sacrifices and acknowledges the importance of breastfeeding.

I can’t control what she does and I don’t want to. I can only control why I do and my options are to make a rock solid empirical case that any use of daycare will cause serious long-term problems for our hypothetical children, break up with her, or mitigate the potential damage.
 

Fifth, people (should!) have children because they want to spend time with them and help them grow into the best people they can, why even have children if you have to have someone else to raise them.

You’re assuming that it’s binary, but my discussions with people my age who have been to daycare and who have been successful in school and careers suggests that this may be a false dichotomy. Raising children in human tribes has always been to some extent a community effort. Granted, just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s ideal, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
 

Lastly, and I'm not meaning this as a personal attack, but if your priorities are to make more money then make more money but don't mask it under the guise of "it's what's best for the children."

False dichotomy. I frankly don’t care much about money itself. I do care about being surrounded by intelligent people though, and I can’t help but notice that highly intelligent people tend to cluster around places you need money to be a part of.
 

Children don't need money or things they need their parents.

Really, is that true in all situations? And compared to what? If we both quit our jobs we’ll both be around the kids all of the time. I assume that’s not what you are getting at though, so we’re back to managing trade-offs. Children need a lot of things to grow up to be successful adults. The trick is figuring out what the optimal mix is.
 

Also, watch for bias when you're researching the feeling I've gotten so far is that you want to not find research that supports one of you staying home with your children so that the excuse of "there's no research proving one way or the other" will seem valid. Make sure you're putting as much effort into the benefits of staying home and the negatives of daycare as you are the benefits of daycare and the negatives of staying home. You can just as easily be a stay at home parent as your girlfriend can.

Read this thread: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/

Don't you think it's a little odd that Mike put out the call for researching a "Truth About Daycare" presentation in 2014, said it would be done in a few weeks, and two years later it still doesn’t exist? Do you think they just forgot about it or is there just not enough solid evidence to devote a whole video about it? Something tells me that if they had the data to make a solid video against daycare it would be out there.

Again, I bought the Great Courses two series on "Scientific Secrets to Raising Kids Who Thrive" and "Scientific Secrets to Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids". I haven't listened to all of the lectures yet but I haven't found anything in the outlines that takes a strong position against daycare - they do take a strong position against spanking though. In the first lecture, the professor - an expert the area of childhood development - says that if there is an area of parenting he doesn't talk about in the series it's probably because the research provides no clear guidance on the subject.
 

Koroviev raises a good point and I wonder, are you sure you really want to/should have kids? If careers and money are that important (and I don't mean that as a knock), then maybe a family is not for you. (I mean that as a collective you of you and your girlfriend. But perhaps this is something each of you should work out independently, then come together to compare data.) Have you done the cost/benefit spreadsheets on having kids vs not having kids? They sure cost a lot of money, and you lose a lot of freedom. Maybe by going right to daycare vs. stay-at-home parent, you're actually skipping over the critical question of whether or not to have the kids in the first place. And more importantly, why? Doesn't Stef say that "with the why, man can manage any how" (or something to that effect)...? Perhaps if you have the why hammered out, and priorities in order, the next steps may become obvious.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” - Albert Einstein

Stef also says that in order to achieve and maintain a free society, high IQ people with a propensity for seek truth and the K gene-set need to breed. He also says that if you like life you should “pay it forward”.

My girlfriend and I are much better qualified to have children than my parents were, and I’m still happy they had me. I like existing.

 

==============================

 

I see your post Matt.  I'll get to it I promise.  Out of time right now though

[Koroviev]

I apologize ahead of time if I come across as argumentative here, but if I need to push back if I see an obvious counter-argument. Conversations in which everyone agrees tend to be less productive, I find. Also, it’s difficult to hammer this stuff out over lunch :-)

 

Agreed, but it doesn't follow that we have to completely eschew any use of daycare.

 

My girlfriend isn't saying she needs to work full time. She's certainly willing to make career sacrifices and go to part time for a while, etc... But she doesn't want to drop out of the workforce entirely. Not only that but there will be grandparents, etc… And she’d be willing to reconsider things if I can prove that this would actually have a serious negative impact on the children. It has to be pretty rock solid though.

 

Sorry, I assumed a couple things from your post, first that you were looking for information on the effects of full time daycare so you both could have full time jobs, and second that we were talking in generalities. I don't know how things will turn out for you and your girlfriend specifically because I can't see the future and don't even know you, so if you want to talk your specific situations I'll have to respectfully bow out of this conversation.

 

The reality is that most likely we're not going to change you, or your girlfriend's, minds no matter what evidence we present. Most likely you'll have children and send them to daycare, and most likely they'll turn out just fine. However, the point isn't to aim for raising OK children. The point is to put yourself and your children in the best situation possible to grow into the best people they can be.

 

There isn't any research on the negative effects of part time daycare with peaceful parents who both have a high IQ and are highly invested in there children, and there won't be at least until we get more peaceful parents. So you're not going to find the rock solid evidence that will convince you that daycare is evil. 

 

Lastly, yes you can want to make money and do what's best for your children at the same time, that would be a false dichotomy. However, both cannot be your top priority. One is always going to suffer. Unfortunately, all to often it's the children that do. Again it's just fine to make making money your top priority but saying you need to do it for your children is a lie. You want a nice house, you want to live in a nice neighborhood, you want the nice car, you want the nice clothes, and you want whatever it is you're trying to use to justify you both "needing" to work. All your baby wants is you. My personal opinion is that raising a child is way more important than filling out TPS reports all day so you can pay more in taxes and someone else can dictate how your child grows up, but I'm just some guy on the internet, you're the one that will have to live with whatever choice you make.

[Stan Hunter]

Perhaps try emailing Dr. Faye Snyder to ask if there is data available? 

 

I have her book "The Manual" and it talks about the problems caused by day care, but I have not dug in sufficiently enough to find cold hard data. 

[LancierDombre]

Nice conspiracy theory...

I'll own that I could have worded that more tactfully but I stand behind the content of what I wrote.

 

I'm pretty sure you've said in the past that you've had to give up on presentations because you didn't have enough data to make a solid video.  That intellectual integrity is one of the reasons that I respect what you and Stef do here and it's a large part of why I donate.  It's not a "conspiracy theory" to assume that was what happened in this case.  It was a logical inference based on what I knew at the time and it seems like it was mostly correct. You said that the researcher flaked - I didn't know that this was supposed to be an interview just based on the thread - so you didn't have enough data to make a whole video about it.

 

Do you think they just forgot about it or is there just not enough solid evidence to devote a whole video about it? Something tells me that if they had the data to make a solid video against daycare it would be out there.

 

Does that appreciably differ in content from "the researcher flaked and I got detoured to other projects"?

 

None of this means that Daycare is good of course. But if the data is limited that’s just where we are.

 

or you could simply ask what happened and I'd tell you

I did ask about it on February 16th 2016. You hadn't replied yet. It's the last post on this thread and I replied directly to you: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39621-the-truth-about-daycare/

 

I know you're busy though so you may not have seen my post. I'm glad I finally know what went on with that now.  I never accused you of being lazy.

 

I think it is a moral concern. You can't be positively sure as you can as a stay-at-home parent that the child will not be abused at daycare. Children are extremely delicate, especially in the early years. Why would you hand over a living breathing china doll to strangers? You take your own risks, but when you have a child you are managing risks for someone who is helpless and infinitely more vulnerable than you. You are there to maintain their safety at all costs, because if you don't, or if you fail to... would you really want to be that guy?

 

If there is any available option which is both do-able and minimizes risk for the child of being abused, besides all the wonderful things that will come from it in the long term ( great relationship where lots of time is spent with one another), then are you really going to stare your daughter in the eyes when you are older and say with humility that you chose money over being with her in her most primary years of growing? If you are wrong that it was the right thing to do, then you will lose credibility with your child.

 

I had a small idea, maybe you can show her Isabella (Bad Philosophy Show!) to let her see the delight that exists in the voice of a child raised with stay-home parents. If her reaction is negative, you could console her about her childhood. But if she is defensive to that it will be a big red flag in terms of unacknowledged trauma. I have another half to this post which you might want to digest separately:

 

By the way, your child will have the opportunity to go to school! But it has to be spontaneous choice not deliberately planned, and in some sense it must involve his/her commitment to the idea. The gravity of such a decision to make for a child is wise not to be given at toddler-hood, since they have more awareness and forethought at older ages. Simply put, they can comprehend the full range of their choices the more they get older.

 

That is why stay-at-home for the first five years is so essential, because you are literally developing the bond and environment for the child to become accustomed to just by virtue of being with them consistently. In absence of that, the child will not ever re-learn to develop a consistent bond in the way it was supposed to be done in the first years. The research (ACE) seems to say that if it doesn't develop in a secure and predictable way that there will be somewhat predictable negative consequences from this (this is apart from the moral case).

 

Also, a certain amount of time in day-care will imply the same symptoms as maternal abandonment. Were you aware of that, or should I help you out finding the source?

I’d love that source if you know where it is! I thought I heard that somewhere before but I couldn’t remember where exactly. Thank you.

 

I’ll have to listen to the Bad Philosophy Show. The problem might be that it is anecdotal, and my girlfriend remembers the children being happy in her mom’s daycare. But maybe I could use it to help plant the seed in her mind.

 

It doesn't look to me like you've introspected much on why you and your girlfriend *personally* want to have children. The response comes off as defensiveness to me, so I'm not sure what more I can do to help. Good luck to you.

After mulling over what you said earlier, I actually asked her to write down her reasons for why she wants children and why she wants a career. I did the same. We’re going to share them with each other when we finish writing them out.  I think it should be an interesting starting place.

 

Sorry, I assumed a couple things from your post, first that you were looking for information on the effects of full time daycare so you both could have full time jobs, and second that we were talking in generalities. I don't know how things will turn out for you and your girlfriend specifically because I can't see the future and don't even know you, so if you want to talk your specific situations I'll have to respectfully bow out of this conversation.

 

The reality is that most likely we're not going to change you, or your girlfriend's, minds no matter what evidence we present.

Not true at all, my instincts are to agree with you actually. However, I’m a data based life form. I need to know what the empirical case looks like before doing something drastic.

 

Also, I try to argue both sides of an issue with intellectual empathy before coming down too strongly. This is especially true of subjects I haven’t thought that much about yet. I know it’s annoying to some people, but it’s how I process things.

 

Most likely you'll have children and send them to daycare, and most likely they'll turn out just fine. However, the point isn't to aim for raising OK children. The point is to put yourself and your children in the best situation possible to grow into the best people they can be.

 

There isn't any research on the negative effects of part time daycare with peaceful parents who both have a high IQ and are highly invested in there children, and there won't be at least until we get more peaceful parents. So you're not going to find the rock solid evidence that will convince you that daycare is evil.

Lastly, yes you can want to make money and do what's best for your children at the same time, that would be a false dichotomy. However, both cannot be your top priority.

Agreed, and neither of us see money as a top priority. It’s discovering the best balance that’s difficult.

 

One is always going to suffer. Unfortunately, all to often it's the children that do. Again it's just fine to make making money your top priority but saying you need to do it for your children is a lie. You want a nice house, you want to live in a nice neighborhood, you want the nice car, you want the nice clothes, and you want whatever it is you're trying to use to justify you both "needing" to work.

All your baby wants is you. My personal opinion is that raising a child is way more important than filling out TPS reports all day so you can pay more in taxes and someone else can dictate how your child grows up, but I'm just some guy on the internet, you're the one that will have to live with whatever choice you make.

That’s a very convincing argument to someone who already agrees with you. My instinct is to agree with you, but my views have been challenged by adults who actually went to daycare as children and think that it was a good thing for them. I could just dismiss it as me talking to their parents or something, but that just begs the question if I don’t have proof of harm like I do with spanking. It would also be incredibly arrogant of me not to consider that I might be the one who is mistaken here given that I have no personal experience of daycare. I don’t consider accusing people of caring more about a car than their hypothetical children to be a productive way forward.

[Koroviev]

That’s a very convincing argument to someone who already agrees with you. My instinct is to agree with you, but my views have been challenged by adults who actually went to daycare as children and think that it was a good thing for them. I could just dismiss it as me talking to their parents or something, but that just begs the question if I don’t have proof of harm like I do with spanking. It would also be incredibly arrogant of me not to consider that I might be the one who is mistaken here given that I have no personal experience of daycare. I don’t consider accusing people of caring more about a car than their hypothetical children to be a productive way forward.

 

I understand and you make some good points, but the question is if, and when, there is no good and or solid evidence how/what will you decide? We know children don't need stuff (see la leche league, attachment parenting, peaceful parenting, etc.), we know children do need their parents (source source), we know that children in daycare and public school tend to gravitate to the "least common denominator," and that children left in childcare for long periods of time show similar signs to those who have been abandoned (the source escapes me at the moment but it's on here somewhere). So if you do not find solid research showing that part time daycare has clear negative effects on your children are you going to ignore all of that, all of the other research, as well as your parental instincts so that you can, theoretically, have a little more money and hope that you are not wrong? 

[Matthew Ed Moran]

My instinct is to agree with you, but my views have been challenged by adults who actually went to daycare as children and think that it was a good thing for them. I could just dismiss it as me talking to their parents or something, but that just begs the question if I don’t have proof of harm like I do with spanking. It would also be incredibly arrogant of me not to consider that I might be the one who is mistaken here given that I have no personal experience of daycare.

 

Of course the question is "good" compared to what? I think a reasonable position on this matter since there is a lack of data, is that if you are higher IQ, more invested, more well read on philosophical parenting, then there is going to be a significant drop off in the quality of care between you and a day care worker. Do you dispute that your IQs are going to be on average higher than daycare workers? Do you dispute that you are more invested in your own children than they are? Do you dispute that as a consumer of FDR that you are more well read and attuned to be philosophical parents?

 

If not, then you do not dispute there will be a significant drop in the quality of care between you and a daycare worker. I think after so many points have been brought up here and we have dwindled down the consideration to its essence, it is this question then that you are left with. It is not an unclear question, it does not actually require you to do any research on daycare besides what is readily knowable that I have already pointed out.

 

So the question is, do you acknowledge time spent with daycare workers will be a significant drop off in the quality of care you will be offering to your child, and to what extent are you willing to enter your child into a worse situation of care compared to you staying home with them? You are great at arguing and I mean that in the best way possible, but I would like a direct acknowledgement of the choice you are making here with regards to daycare or staying at home. I think if you at least see that you will be sacrificing the quality of care, then it makes the absence of data a bit irrelevant, since you'd be putting them in top daycare for limited hours anyway is the impression I'm getting from you (which would require very specific research). But the point is even a top daycare will be a drop in the quality of care.

 

So if it is true that daycare will sacrifice your child's quality of care, then you can balance that against being in a better neighborhood or having more money for school. In general, the morality of parenting consists in giving choices to your children, and making the most reasonable choices for them when they are in ages 0-5. I don't see any basis to claim that something is more important in the first 5 years, whether it be living in a certain neighborhood or saving for school, than you being with your child for as much time as possible in the first 5 years. If you have a reasonable claim to say something else is worth sacrificing the care of your child in their developmental years, I think you should share it to at least have the certainty you're calculating the risk/reward from the perspective of the child in the most virtuous way possible, because you will be held accountable to your child if you made sacrifices in the quality of their care which were not necessary.

 

If you don't think daycare will be a significant drop off in the quality of care compared to you and your wife, then I must ask, why is your opinion of yourselves as parents so low? Thanks for the consideration

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I have a post awaiting moderation but this is relevant consider there is a claim that 20+ hrs in daycare signals maternal rejection: