Strollerderby

SIGN ME UP!!!  I can see the problem with the notion that it has to be the mother, or that out of the home childcare could be "detrimental" to the child's development.  I don't buy it.  BUT, incentives for parents to stay home if they want to is a wonderful idea.  They already have better parental leave in Australia than we do here....  but why not make it even better?

There is significant research that shows full-time care of infants under 12 months indicates lower cognitive functioning and lower attachment levels, and similar research shows children OVER age 1 who are in outside the home care a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 25 hours per week BENEFIT cognitively and emotionally. There is NO indicator that says full-time, quality child care is detrimental to child development...so I'm pretty sure the Aus. government is just trying to make an "ideal" situation possible for some people. (I'm a full time Family and Child studies Assoc. Prof....not just some lady quoting random "studies").

I think it's a great idea for kids less than 12 months, but should definitely extend to fathers or even grandparents---whoever the parent(s) choose. Anything that gives parents more options to do what they feel is best and financial assistance to make that happen.

AnneAC, could you, please, give references? I am really interested in such studies. Thank you.

Some people might think that it is weird, how come women paid for staying at home with their children. But what can we say about this. The age has been changed lot. In the pass, women stayed at home, raised their children. Nowadays, because of financial needed, women must help their husbands to fulfill the family need.

In Quebec, the government has indirectly implemented that a few years ago, and I'm really thankful for it. We have one year of paid (between 55% and 75% of your salary depending on certain conditions) parental leave after the birth of the adoption of a child. 5 months have to be taken by the mother, but the rest can be shared or taken by either parent. On top of that, fathers (or same-sex partners) have a default 5-week paid leave which they can take whenever they choose within that first year.

Here are a couple of refs about child care for infants under 12 months...

Belsky (2001)Developmental Risks associated with early child care. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Associated Disciplines.

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (1997). The effects of infant child care on infant-mother attachment security: Results of the NICHD study of early child care. Child Development Journal.

Lamb, (1998) Nonparental child care: Context, quality correlates, and consequences. Handbook of child psychology Vol. 4 Child psychology in practice.

I apologize if they're not cited in the proper format...my 2 year old is all up in my face right now :)

AnneAC, I have been trying to decipher your first posting where you summarize certain studies, and I am wondering what do you mean when you say "[t]here is significant research that shows full-time care of infants under 12 months indicates lower cognitive functioning and lower attachment levels" - do you mean to say full-time care by someone other than the mother?  And if so, at what age is there evidence of "lower cognitive functioning?"

The thing that bugs me about all studies of day care vs. mom care is that every single one is based on *correlations* between different kinds of care and different outcomes.  It's obvious why (there's no way to randomly assign families to different conditions) but still, anyone who is trained as a scientist should understand that conclusions based on correlations are always suspect.  The example that has had the most publicity is the relationship between HRT and heart disease.  All of the studies based on correlations showed that HRT was beneficial for heart disease until they finally did a 'gold standard' study to look at a causal relationship and - surprise! - HRT worsened heart disease.  Just because a study with an intervention would be very hard or impossible to do in this case doesn't mean that therefore correlations become equivalent to evidence for causation.

To believe that day care alone causes all the differences in outcomes that are attributed to it, you'd have to believe that families that use day care and families that don't are otherwise exactly alike, and that seems really unlikely to me.

I am a SAHM but I don't think the state should pay me. I think if anyone should pay moms to stay home, is dads ;-)

YES, I'd love for either myself or my husband to get paid to stay home.  How the heck would that be calculated, though?  Sounds difficult.

My cousin who lives in Switzerland gets paid to stay home with her kids until they turn 14, yes they pay her even after they start school.

All parents are raising the good citizens of the future, so it's in any country's best interest to make sure they have the financial support to do the job the way they feel is best (whether working or staying home). I think this is a great idea, as long as it's applied to all parents and caregivers, not just moms.