2024 UK politics - now with Labour in charge
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That's great. I'm quite happy to acknowledge that I found staying sane in the face the full-on nature of parenting with very young kids outside my skill set. I was actually quite good at it - the kids still speak highly of the weekends when I was in sole charge, when The Boss was working - but I was mentally "blown" by the end of a solo weekend. Weirdly though, I found the phase with two teenage daughters and all that goes with that quite easy.
We certainly did the "hair on fire" thing for a few years, but it was definitely worth it as Mrs W&G retained her place in a highly technical field in terms of employment prospects.
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I think you're into dangerous territory here. I don't think there is the slightest shred of evidence to suggest that kids that go to nursery have worse life outcomes than those that stay at home in the general case. (If nothing else, nurseries are regulated whereas parents aren't.) Obviously you need to justify your choice to yourself via "nurseries bad, stay-at-home parent good" but let's keep things real!
In fact one might be able to argue that by reducing future earnings prospects via the stay-at-home route, there is less chance of being able to fund private education later in life, which likely does have an impact "at the margins" e.g. in terms of which Uni the kids might end up at.
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Sure. I will say the penalty for leaving work for children is less than it was. Some progress there.
Reality is you can’t have two commuting parents and the career opportunities outside of London can be limited, which happens to be the case for both industries we found ourselves in.
Mine had much more earning upside and I wouldn’t find full time parenting easy but she does so it works out
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The Stevo argument...
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If we side step the ad hominems for one moment, what’s actually wrong with my argument?
Some parents are terrible? Nursery won’t solve that and plenty of nurseries are terrible.
I think the real problem is most people don’t have the choice anymore, as most households need two full time incomes to keep their heads above water.
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I think the research shows that 15-30 hours a week for 3+ has benefits with no downsides. You could enhance your views with a little nuance.
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And what about 0-3?
I put my children into nursery after 3, though not full time.
Whilst I'm giving deeply unpopular opinions, I am of the view that children being in school from 8:30-18:00 every day (once you include wraparound care for working parents) is far too much for them and isn't good for them.
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It's not that the opinions are unpopular, necessarily. After all, I couldn't give a crap either way. It's just that I can see an absence of empathy or more likely understanding of any circumstances other than your own.
I can almost feel the indignance oozing out of the internet.
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If you're providing unpopular opinions then it helps to make them accurate. "Barely looking after children" isn't really true when kids 3+ are benefitting.
To answer your question the longer the hours and the earlier the start of nursery (below 3) the worse the outcome later at school on average. Although again, your description is not accurate.
https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4
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The 11th commandment.
Thou shalt not comment on thy neighbour's parenting.
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Find me the bit that says "barely looking after children"
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That doesn't mean you need to.
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I don't think the link is really discussing the quality of the childcare?
In fairness, I know A LOT of parents who had children here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67380205
but I have also stories from my brother in law (they cannot apparently stop other children biting their child. She's not the most pleasant child, granted, but still).
Then I overhear so many calls in the office for nurseries sending their under 3s home for the most spurious of reasons. Every week there's one stressed parent leaving the office mid morning.
I also happen to have spoken to quite a few investors in nurseries and it is notoriously difficult to make money. They're almost always loss making unless they really screw down wages, which is one of the few costs they have control over.
He was saying how the regulation is so strict, they accept that they have high turnover and staff they wouldn't really want to hire, but that's all they can afford and, their argument is, either they do that or the nursery closes.
So all of that has contributed to my view that the quality of care isn't all that.
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Meh, I hold my tongue IRL. YMMV, and I do genuinely believe it ought to be a choice for as many parents as possible - I'm not advocating my way or no way.
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Parents know best is such a crock.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think we have different levels of confidence in public institutions. It's not so much I think parents know best; I don't especially trust institutions to do any better, and their incentives are not necessarily always aligned with your individual child.
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You really do seem to have a magnetic attraction to disaster Rick.
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I am literally saying we need to create an environment where parents have a choice on the matter, rather than the current situation which is forcing parents to send their 0-3 children to nursery (despite evidence that it's not great for them), regardless, because of the ridiculously high living costs which automatically requires 2 incomes for all but the highest earners.
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There is a bit on quality below. I will repeat what I said above, your controversial view would have far more merit if presented with the nuance it deserves.
High quality daycare reduces all the negative effects I’ve discussed above, although it doesn’t eliminate them. It also has long-lasting positive effects on educational outcomes. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s hard to find; only 10–15% of daycare in the US is high quality, and many child care centers offer “disturbingly low quality programs”.
My friends always say that they’ve personally been lucky and found fantastic daycare settings. The sad thing is that researchers have found that nearly all parents rate their settings as great. Compared to trained observers, parents overrate infant-toddler rooms by about two standard deviations. That’s like saying parents overrate heights by six inches or IQs by 30 points!
The literature on child care quality is extensive. I’m not going to try to summarise it here. I know some of you will want to learn to evaluate quality yourself, but it’s not something you can pick up from an internet article — or at least, I worry that I’ll do more harm than good if I try. Except: look for settings with as few children per adult as possible. That’s been shown to make a difference.
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I think you're just fortunate. Plenty of people have misfortune. I have the unheathly problem that I have a compulsion to share it all whenever it happens.
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Look, we agree that 3+ nurseries are positive. Largely because by the time they're 3 they've developed the cognitive ability to be social, and so it's important they learn that, not least as all subject learning happens in a social setting (aka school).
However, given in the UK we send our children to school aged 4, the bulk of children in nursery, certainly in my circles anyway, are 0-3. The most common age children were sent to nursery around my way is 9 months - I know a few who went in at 6 months (best man at my wedding, couldn't wait to send her off) but by 12 months amongst everyone we knew with children the same age, (NCT, neighbours, friends etc), we were the only ones who hadn't.
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I clearly touched one of your nerves at some point, as I've not even been in this particular debate ;)
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
That may all be true, but it does not justify your previously stated opinion.
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There is that saying 'You make your own luck': I'm beginning to think that for some people, 'You make your own disaster' is also true 🙂
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I thought the legislation was for now more than 3 children per staff member?
Again I don't know the point you are making. It's expensive primarily because of that, but too expensive? It's also not good enough.
What are you saying? Be more Rick?
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Nurseries cost what they cost. I don't think you can do much about the cost, tbh, unless you impact the quality which I think just makes many more problems down the road. Ludicrously expensive as they are.
However, we need people to have children, so we need to look at other costs elsewhere i.e. living costs, or rent and mortgages. Cut those down substantially and a) the nurseries won't seem so expensive and b) there is a choice parents will have re parenting.
House prices and rents have gone up so much due to lack of supply it's now normal to need 2 incomes to sustain it all. That has knock on effects across the board, including how we bring children up - and that in turn affects how they are going to be as adults.
I think if we really work hard at cutting the cost of living in a house, then a lot of things like child benefit, nursery subsidies etc, can be scaled back!
I still recon part of the nostalgia for manufacturing is nostalgia for an era where you didn't need to be highly educated or a big earner to be able to sustain a household one one income if you weren't greedy.
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It's less a faith in institutions, public or otherwise, and more an acceptance that someone who's passed, say, a two year course in nursery care has more knowledge on the subject than the majority of parents.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
When was this era of (the majority) of households wth kids only needing one income?
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