Coping with Responsibility: How reliable is daycare?

For many individuals, life is constantly moving. Think for example about the following example of the Bell family: Gwen is running late one morning and still has to drop Cassie off at daycare. When Gwen finally makes it to work, her co-worker has already poured her a cup of coffee assuming the morning had been rough. Now, Gwen will put in eight and a half--sometimes nine hours a day before racing back to Spotted Dear Child-Care Center to pick up Cassie. At home, Gwen's husband John w

Once upon a time, daycare was thought of as the "child abuse epidemic" (646). Luckily for those parents with younger children, Susan Faludi's article "The Kids are All Right," concludes daycare is a viable option and children not suffering from daycare settings. The over-all long term effects of daycare are more positive: Children in daycare are more social, experimental, self-assured, cooperative, and creative. It can be found even more surprising that children in daycare experience social and intellectual development six to nine times faster than those staying at home. Daycare also allows poverty stricken children a "ticket out of the ghetto" (646).

At first, I could not believe parents could find work less stressful than being at home, but then I considered an example of the Avery family: Linda and Bill both work at the same place and have a 2-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. To watch out for the children, Bill works 7:00AM-3:00PM while Linda works 3:00PM-11:00PM. However, Linda's schedule is subject to change because she is known to volunteer for overtime using the excuse that as soon as she gets home and opens the door, "my daughter is right there. Granted, she needs someone to talk to about her day.... The baby is still up. He should have been in bed two hours ago, and that upsets me. The dishes are piled in the sink. My daughter comes right up to the door to complain about anything her step-father said or did, and she wants to talk about her job. My husband is in the other room hollering, 'Tracy, I don't ever get any time to talk to your mother, because you're always monopolizing her time before I even get a chance!' They all come at me at once" (642). Almost instantly, Linda adds that she often arrives at work early just to get out of the house (642).

We all hear those terrifying daycare experiences of children aimlessly torturing other children, bringing about years of emotional challenges. Allow me to burst that bubble for you: there is no permanent, ultimate effect of daycare facilities on children. Yet, there is a reality to the daycare system. Dorothy Conniff states that we "value children only sentimentally," and continues to claim that the "real needs and concerns do not register as essential" (643). Why would Mrs. Conniff have drawn this conclusion? Unfortunately, her reasoning may be correct when speaking of infant care: there are rarely any regulations or requirements to limit the number of infants left in the care of one worker. Generally, those areas that do limit the infant to worker ratio leave it open to either five or six. But, taking care of an infant requires very much attention. For example, wi

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