It’s official. Working moms now have one more thing to worry about. Last week, The New York Times ran a story titled: “Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care.” The article outlines a study that concludes even one year in a day care setting can result in disruptive—or even aggressive—behavior in your child for years to come.
The alarmist title of this article surely had working moms across America shiver. Luckily, researchers of this large study state that the unruly behavior, found in the 1,300 children assessed by teachers, was within the normal range for healthy children. The researchers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development-funded study also point out that parents’ guidance and their genes are the biggest contributers to a child’s behavior. Interestingly, it also states that poor behavior—from bullying classmates to interrupting class—continues until the sixth grade.
Hmm. That’s a mixed bag. I’d chock it up as good news since another finding is that the quality of child care didn’t affect the outcome. Across the board, children who attended day care settings—regardless of their standard of care—were unruly in classrooms later.
This is truly upsetting news as not everyone can afford to hire a nanny or to quit their job. Both parents work in seventy percent of American families and according to the Children’s Defense Fund, 2.3 million American children under age five are in day care centers. To add insult to injury, day care is still expensive. Various expert assessments put day care costs from $4,000–$13,000 a year, per child. It certainly makes moms (and dads) angry to think that they may be spending up to twenty-five percent of their income for sub-par care that will result in a future mired with poor progress reports from middle-school teachers.
What’s the solution? For many of us, all we can do is make an effort to find a day care center with a good reputation, a philosophy of child-rearing that we agree with, a low teacher-to-student ratio, and hopefully a low turnover rate among staff. This last goal is quite challenging. Sadly, day care workers “are paid less than parking lot attendants,” says Joan Blades, co-founder of Momsrising.org, a nonprofit organization that aims to empower people across the country to band together to influence, and ultimately pass, family-friendly legislation.
