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Humans: We’re Mammals Too
Writing for the Institute of Family Studies (IFS), Jenet Erickson takes down the idea of “universal child care” as the governmental solution to our childcare crisis, which has been exacerbated by school closures nationwide. But Erickson hit upon the third rail of American mommy wars regarding the fight about daycare and stay-at-home-motherhood. Because it’s part of the “mommy wars” and most of those working in media, academia, etc are unwilling or unable to touch upon the science behind the question of “What does biology say about what’s best for kids?”
Erickson explains what happened in Quebec when universal childcare in the form of government daycares was enacted,
Years of emotional and behavioral assessments collected on children who had attended child care after the launch of Quebec’s universal child care program indicated cause for concern. On average, 2- to 4-year-old children who had been in child care showed significant increases in anxiety, aggression, and hyperactivity, and experienced more hostile, inconsistent parenting and lower-quality parent-child relationships compared to children who had not attended. As children grew older, these negative outcomes did not dissipate: among 5- to 9-year-olds, the social-emotional problems not only persisted, but in some cases increased, particularly for boys with the most elevated behavioral problems.
Follow-up studies conducted 20 years after the program’s inception further revealed that negative social-emotional outcomes associated with attending child care persisted through adolescence and into young adulthood. Among young people from ages 12 to 20, self-reported health and life satisfaction decreased significantly. The scale-up of universal child care in Quebec was also associated with a subsequent “sharp and contemporaneous increase in criminal behavior” across Quebec, as the rate of crime conviction jumped 22 percent. As the following figure indicates, though crime rates in Quebec are lower than the rest of Canada, there was a significant increase in crime accusation and conviction rates for cohorts exposed to the child care program.
The issue isn’t just Quebec-specific, with similar findings out of the United States,
In the United States, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care (NICHD-SECC)—a longitudinal investigation following a group of 1,364 children from birth onwards—yielded findings that have also raised concerns. Although some of the study’s evidence showed that high quality child care increased children’s basic academic skills at kindergarten entry, extensive hours in a child care program during infancy and toddlerhood predicted negative social-emotional outcomes into adolescence.
By age four-and-a-half, children who had spent more than 30 hours per week in child care had, on average, worse outcomes in every area of social-emotional development—weaker social competence, more behavior problems, and greater conflict with adults—at rates three times higher than their peers. Just 2% of children who averaged less than 10 hours per week exhibited behavioral problems, compared to 18% of those who averaged 30 hours or more and 24% of those who averaged 45 hours or more per week. The negative effects associated with extensive hours in child care rivaled the effects of poverty. Family income, maternal education, child care quality, and quality of the child’s relationship with the caregiver had no impact on those effects (see figure below).
What’s the reason behind why outcomes are so negative for children who spent significant time in childcare?
A fairly new body of research comparing children’s stress levels in child care and at home sheds new light on that question. Researchers assess children’s stress levels in both environments by measuring salivary levels of the stress hormone cortisol, produced by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system in response to psychological or physical stress. A growing number of studies (see here and here) have found that some children’s stress levels increase significantly when they are in child care—especially full-time, center-based care—indicated by persistently elevated cortisol levels when in the child care setting, specifically. When at home, their cortisol levels return to normal.
It turns out, humans are mammals and babies and young offspring need their mothers. And when they are separated from them before they’re developmentally ready, they experience stress that has a long-term impact on their developing brains.
This is one of those things we’re not allowed to say anymore, that there is real, hard science behind the idea of stay-at-home motherhood, especially in the early years. The IFS writes on the topic in order to push back on the proposed solution of universal childcare here in the United States, but it’s time for Americans to have a wider, more honest conversation about the idea of mothers caring for their own babies/young children outside of proposed public policy solutions. As women (and men) are deciding what’s best for their young children, they are being denied the scientific information that may inform their decision in a more healthy direction.
Published in General
You act like the proponents of these programs aren’t fully aware of those consequences to begin with.
It also seems likely that spending most of their formative years in a group-childcare environment trends to raise more-conformist children. This was evidently observed in the early days of some Israeli kibbutzim, see this personal report.
Two words: Porges and Schore. If you want everybody to be miserable and if you want to destroy all of society’s human capital just do the opposite of what those two guys say. Communism is a proven stupid idea.
The good news is that Biden signed an EO that all policy decisions must be guided by science, so no doubt the discussions around universal child care will be completely based on data and science.
Yep. The welfare of children isn’t the point of these programs. If children have to suffer to fulfill the feminist dream of having it all, so be it. Or, if we want to get more cynical, the point is to separate children from their parents as early as possible to subvert the family as a source of resistance to state control.
Bethany, thank you for this update. So it turns out that having mommy around is quite important to child development. Who would have expected that?
Sadly, I don’t expect facts or science to matter to feminists, nor to those who support their agenda.
There is another interesting facet to this report, specifically the discussion of the stress effect occurring through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) mechanism. I’ve seen a 2011 paper by Brendan Zietsch hypothesizing that an interaction between the HPA system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) system could account for some of the prevalence of homosexuality. (Reference here – his article starts on p. 291 of the pdf).
This raises the possibility that increases in the number of children in early child care could account for some (or all) of the increased prevalence of homosexuality among age cohorts in the US. I haven’t seen a recent survey on this, but a 2017 survey by Gallup on LGBT self-identification reported 1.4% in the oldest generation (the “silents”), 2.4% among Boomers, 3.5% among Gen X, and 8.2% among Millennials (here).
It’s complicated, so I doubt that child care issues would be the only contributing factor, but it does raise an interesting possible explanation of the rise in non-heterosexuality.
I should note that Zeitch’s paper does not address trans, while the Gallup data includes trans. I find it difficult to find good data sources that separate sexual orientation (i.e. heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual) from sexual identity (trans) prevalence.
There has been a question nagging at me for a while. Have Conservative women with children bought in to the child care scenario? It seems like a lot of Conservative women are working full-time, and maybe they can afford nannies, but that isn’t the same as mom at home. Maybe my perception is incorrect. But 40 years ago being a stay-at-home mom was a big deal to the Right. Now I wonder if that’s changed.
It looks like the first study is based on self-selecting groups. That always opens the door to correlation rather than causation. Maybe people with stressful households are more likely to use childcare to reduce the family stress. A good study would randomly assign families to use childcare, but even then people agreeing with that study are self-selecting.
The Ypsilanti study is the most famous preschool experiment. I think the results are mixed and people generally conclude whatever they want from it. Conclusions vary from “benefits fade with time” and “benefits persist into the next generation”.
I agree entirely with you. The Overton window has definitely shifted on this one. One of my biggest pet peeves is conservative women who aren’t conservative in this, what I find to be the most important area: tending to your own family. And I get in trouble a lot for pointing it out, but as in other areas, conservatives have shifted left because liberals have. And what’s worse is many of them are supportive of the state being involved in this “childcare.”
“What’s the reason behind why outcomes are so negative for children who spent significant time in childcare?”
The reason is that sticking your children in childcare is, in fact, an abandonment. You are giving more of the child’s time to the day care workers than to yourself.
I am so forever grateful that the late first Mrs Doc Robert gave up teaching to stay home with our kids. The oldest was then aged 4 and the youngest 2 had not yet arrived. I see her love and influence in them every day, and they are all solid citizens, making me proud.
Universal day care is a leftist abomination.
I wish there was a laugh response, not just a like.
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