I am a product of daycare as are my three sisters. My mother and father both worked fulltime all of my life. I am a college professor, and all three of my sisters are professionals: one is a microbiologist, one is an accountant and one is a highschool teacher. Both of my parents are also college educated. It is my opinion whether or not your children are in daycare or whether they stay at home with you it depends on the QUALITY of the care given. My mother and father did spend quality time with us when they came home from work. I found my parents to be invaluable when we were growing up. They were always available to help with homework. I was very lucky and I contribute my success in life to my parents. It is from my parents I learned organization, accountability, time and money management. I do not think I would possess these skills had my parents not worked. I could spend all day recounting how I was always so proud of my parents when they were able to visit us at school and talk about their profession on careers day or how my mother was able to set up tours for my classroom of the courthouse (she was in the law profession).

I am certain had my parents not been professional people, I would not have read the books I read growing up or been able to travel the world and learn about different cultures first hand.

Ultimately, it is up to the parent to decide what is best for their child, but I strongly believe I would be doing my daughter a disservice if she does not get to know me for who I am now, my passions, etc…

For me choosing to stay at home I will rob my daughter of the wonderful opportunities I was given.

Anderson proved that children entering daycares, at an early age performed better on cognitive tests compared to children whom entered later, or not at all.
Also, if a child doesn’t have a secure attachment, (safe base) they may be less willing to explore the new, unfamiliar environment of a nursery.
Dilalla showed that the more daycare a child has the less socially they behave, by being proven to be less likely to share and help others.
However, what ever your opinion is on daycares it ultimately comes down to the quality and successfulness of the nursery or day-care you use.

There is a lot of emotion in this section of comments.

How hard it is for me to read about parents who put their children in daycare. And while I am sure the decision was agonized over, debated, and possibly even prayed over…the end result is the same: The baby/child spends more time at daycare than at home.

How could this possibly be best?

No matter how “good” or “high-quality” a daycare is, it is still only a *substitute* for Mama. Those bragging rights don’t matter to a child that just desires to be with a parent.

I agree with Abby…. our kids deserve the best of us!

Twenty-five years later, we’ve JUST learned the following:

The first year-and-a-half to two years of a child’s life are crucial with respect to “attachment.” It is imperative that the child have a single primary caregiver who cares for them at least 30 percent of the time throughout that period of time.

My husband and I were both actively involved in our daughter’s care (both together and separately), and we were successful in ensuring that she was constantly surrounded and cared for by people who treated her with kindness, respect and love, and who ensured that she had positive opportunities for social and intellectual development.

Although she was raised by the proverbial loving “village,” however, I cannot honestly say that throughout the first year-and-a-half of her life any ONE person consistently cared for her 30 percent of the time.

As a result, for the past 10 years she has struggled terribly with an attachment disorder. Not only will the treatment last years and cost a fortune, but she has endured terrible personal suffering as a result.

It was very important to us to make a wise decision in with respect to her care, and all options were open to us. After giving the matter a great deal of thought, we truly believed we were making the right decision with respect to combining work, daycare and the care of loving family members — and we still got it wrong.

If I had it to do over again, I would absolutely have stayed with her for the first year-and-a-half of her life and made sure she had the consistency of a single primary caregiver.

Good luck to all you young parents!

I just said that I agree with the “nothing happens first rule.” I worked in a day care for 2 years (a very well established Atlanta day care and preschool). I said before you just have to know the teachers well if you are going to go with daycare.

Now I am a nanny. I love what I do. I don’t lie. My boss was upfront that I would have some firsts and she would have others. It was simply a fact of life that she realized. Even if you are a SAHP you won’t get ever first, but you will get more than you would if you were not a SAHP.

And good grief, if you see any parent who is miserable, (SAHP or working parent), obviously something is amiss in their family and it probably isn’t simply the fact that they work or stay at home.

By the way, as a SAHM I would like to say that I would LOVE a day when all I did was, ’stay at home.’ Please. The benefits for me are that I get to be the boss of my day, who I socialize with, and how much time I spend with my kid, (and yes we use a baby-sitter sometimes), etc.

Maybe I’m just power hungry, (joking), but I never found a job that let me do all that. Please let me know if you all find one–I’d love to look into it b/c I sure do also love money.

That being said it is judgmental to determine that one group is a worse off parent.

I am a SAHM and we have made many many sacrifices for this to work. We are in the lower level of middle class and it’s been a challenge, but worth it to be able to stay at home. And no, our retirement is not fully funded. We hope to make up when I restart my career. I know it will never be at the level it would have if I’d not stayed home, but to us, it’s worth it.

This is truly one of the hardest decisions we have had to make!!!

1950s-style are still affordable.

It’s just that people want to live in houses two or three times the size of the house 1950s families lived in.

Plenty of families of that era did just fine in a 3 bedroom, 2 or 1 bath, sub-1000 sq. ft. home.

I grew up in a huge (6,000 sq. ft.) barn of a home, and know what it cost my family in time and money.

Which is why my family of 4 lives cheaply in a home less than 1,500 sq. ft.

If you want the 4,500 sq. ft. McMansion, you’re going to have to pay a heavy price for it.

Trent wrote:

This isn’t the 1950s any more – house prices have grown at a rate much higher than inflation, just for starters.

I am a SAHM, by choice, even. Why? It’s not that I can’t or won’t hold down a job, like Jenn insultingly posted above (you don’t think I HAVE a job, chasing after a toddler, simply because I’m not getting paid???) I worked my a$$ off until I was in my late 30’s, racked up a small pension and nice deferred comp/retirement account balances first. Betcha my retirement, even with this time off, is better funded and more secure than hers. I made sure to do that because I knew that someday I might want, or need, the option to stay home with a kidlet for a few years.

Around here, it’s a definite need for me to stay home. I’m glad so many of you have high quality child care, but where I live, you practically have to beg to get on the vacancy list, oh, about two months before conception if you want a place for an infant. That’s just to get ANY spot….even at Jim’s Tackle and Kiddie Kare Korral, where it’s been 4 days since the last kid did a header offa the monkey bars!

Putting him with some unlicensed provider doing heaven knows what when I’m working simply isn’t an option for me. Call me chicken, but I wasn’t going to risk the health and safety of most precious little critter on the planet that way.

Not to mention that along with my sweetie’s high pay comes an expectation that he will work 10 to sometimes 12 hours a day….and that’s in a good week….and someone needs to be with the little guy, so here I am.

Yep, it will probably hurt my career, but not as much as it did moving to this small town from the big city so my sweetie could find a decent job. But you know what? THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES ANYWAY! Telemarketers, tax preparers and engineers sure didn’t count on outsourcing to India. You could get hit by a bus or get a disease and be unable to work in your current career. (Keep in mind that you are four times more likely to be disabled and can’t work than you are to die before the age of 65…..yes, dahlink, it could happen to you even if you eat right and get your exercise….I worked in a pension fund with disability benefits, I know what I’m talking about here.)

Stay flexible, and make the most of your current opportunities. If staying at home is the best option for you and your family, great! If working and putting your kidlet in a high quality day care is an option you are comfortable with and can pull off, terrific! But don’t assume that what works for you works everywhere under all conditions like some of the posters here.

Now, excuse me….me and the boy are gonna watch some “Meerkat Manor”. Yep. TV. I’m sure some of you think it’s child abuse, or further proof that SAHM’s are lazy and don’t do “enriching” activities with their kids. I admit it, I’m selfish….I just love to hear him crack up when he sees an extreme meerkat closeup, especially of the baby meerkats. He won’t remember these moments, but I’ll never forget them. And I’m not gonna apologize for that one damn bit.

We are also planning children in a few years. We will likely use a combination of grandma and daycare. To answer your question though, I think that a preschool program (at age 3-4 for a few hours a week) is sufficient to prepare children for school, and daycare isn’t needed.

One thing you may not have thought of… some companies have a day care spending account where you can save for day care expenses (including in home care by a family member) tax free. We plan to use this and pay my MIL. There is also a dependent care tax credit that you should take advantage of.

I’m sure all the day care providers appreciated the comment that putting children in day care is “risking their life.”

Yea right…

I know plenty of kids who are narrowly avoiding a life of crime _because_ their parents are chosing to let the daycare “raise them”.

Being able to breed is different then being a good parent.