From: EKOCK@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: At what age is day care appropriate?
Date: 16 Apr 92 14:49:19 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs

>
>A baby doesn't care if her parent is exhausted, he doesn't care
>if the parent is nauseated by the smell of excrement, she doesn't care if the
>your father's head when your father is riding you on his shoulders.  It
>to make a baby feel loved is someone who actually loves the baby.
>worker loves her.  Oh, I'm sure many workers really like their charges, but
>no one can love your baby like you can.  The worker is doing it for money,
>and the worker always gives up the child (we hope) in the end.  It must
>be very confusing at first to an infant, sort of a dailey double betrayal: her
>parents give her up in the morning, her daycare worker gives her up in the
>our children; then, as they grow up, we let go little by little.  We help them
>to gradually find security within themselves, from confidence in their own
>abilites.  Sorry, but the idea that sticking a baby in daycare at the first
>to the bottom of the pool?)  Eventually, the girl does become a woman, the boy
>becomes a man, and discovers that the secure feeling was a kind of illusion, hi
  I'd like to comment on the notion that the best person
  to care for a child is the one who "loves him (or her) most".
  I don't think that this is always true in the real world,
  which is unfortunately the one we're all stuck with.
  I think that there's a logical leap going on when we
  assume that because someone loves a child that person is
  best equipped to meet all the child's needs all the time.
  I also believe that flipping it around to say that because
  someone doesn't love a child that person can't meet the
  child's needs is making a similar leap in logic.
  Think of a parent with a handicapped child
  who must face the difficult decision of placing the child
  in an institution.  That parent probably loves that child
  more than anyone in the world yet that parent must find
  a solution that is best for an entire family, including
  the child and the best solution may not be to have the
  child living with the family.  People who abuse their
  children don't hate their children, they often love them
  deeply, but they are clearly not the best caretakers.
  Parents who have mental or substance abuse problems love
  their children but again, their children may be better
  off being cared for by other people, at least temporarily.
  These are extremes but you probably get my drift.

  It's too easy to think we're all Ozzie and Harriets.
  There are lots of grey areas and lots of ways to provide
  good care for children.  The best solution for a particular
  family and for a particular child is not always so easy.
  Loving a child is clearly not enough.  A single parent
  has different choices to make than a married parent.
  I have different options due to my upbringing, educational
  level, temperament, etc. than other people do.
  Anyway, the fact that the women who care for my child
  don't "love" my child (although I suspect that in some ways that
  they do, just not in the same way I do) is not going to make
  me feel guilty or feel that my son's  well-being is anyway
  jeopardized.  I chose his particular daycare center solely
  because I knew that I wouldn't feel these emotions if he
  were there.  Daycare is a fact of life.  As a society we
  can't do without it.  If you can do without it and are happy,
  you are a lucky person.  We're not all in that same situation
  but we do the best we can for everyone.  A family can't be
  focused on only one person and ignore the rest.

  Ellen
>parents are only human with their own needs and petty little desires, and they
>can't really protect him from the boogie man.  Indeed, his parents run from
>kind of angst until they are ready for it.
>
>
>*******************************************************************************
>Johnny Battle                      Staggering parties of dipsodumb daffodils
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