But that does not mean that red hair causes bank robbing. If kids do have real behavioral problems, it could be due not to day care per se, but to the fact that underpaid day care workers aren't trained to deal with children's emotional issues. Researchers also suggest that stressed-out parents could be the causative factor. The latter would hardly be surprising. Unlike European societies, the United States has made little societal accommodation for the fact that nearly 70 percent of parents today are working.
Schools still operate on the same hours as they did in the pre-industrial age.
There is little government-subsidized day care, as there is in France and Sweden. Maternity and paternity leaves are short and usually unpaid, and vacation time is shrinking for American workers. In fact, studies of children raised in Israeli kibbutzes found these children quite the opposite of aggressive. They were more cooperative and peer-oriented than other children. But Belsky, in a press conference announcing the findings, said that parents ought to work less.