Somebody else has actually said the dreaded “daycare is bad for children”.

They better duck!

I have always said that. I speak from experience, I spent time in daycare as a child and for the first year my oldest was in daycare four days a week.

Childcare for babies is ‘abuse’, says author Mem Fox

PUTTING babies into childcare is a form of abuse, leading children’s author Mem Fox claims.

Ms Fox, a children’s literacy advocate and author of the best-selling Possum Magic, said she believed society would look back on the trend of allowing babies only a few weeks old to be put into childcare and wonder, “How could we have allowed that child abuse to happen?”.

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The Australian Family Association (AFA) said it was “largely supportive” of her comments.

“She’s right, large amounts of research are coming in showing that – particularly for children under two but also under three – childcare is generally likely to be harmful to them,” AFA spokeswoman Angela Conway said, pointing to research from the US and UK.

Is day care child abuse?

While her opinion has ignited a storm of controversy, one has to wonder why. Are there people out there who honestly believe that infants and toddlers are better off in the hands of day care workers than a loving mother or father?

Perhaps the brouhaha has more to do with guilt than anything else.

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Over and over again, I hear working moms say that they are excellent parents, even though their kids spend more than 40 hours per week in day care. It’s laughable.

I wonder, if an employee were to spend one or two hours at work each day, would the boss consider that person to be an “excellent” employee? Probably not.

I’m so tired of parents who pretend that two incomes is an absolute necessity. Kids don’t need a large home or fancy cars. They will survive without cell phones, iPods or – gasp – HD television. What children need above all is constant love and attention.

There is plenty of research to back this up and there has been for years. Just look at the state of our children. I actually wrote a paper several years ago about how church daycare where a detriment to families. I’ll have to find that sometime.