SAHMs vs. Daycare and Child Wellbeing: A Nondefinitive Guive

Whether to stay at home with the children or put their youngsters in daycare and return to work is one of the most controversial issues affecting modern parents.

Whatever you decide, chances are that someone will tell you you've made the wrong decision, an irresponsible decision, a decision that may prove damaging for your child.

So, without further ado, let me present the determinedly nondefinitive, nonjudgmental guide to staying-at-home and daycare, exploring what each choice could mean for your child's wellbeing and development. We'll also explore how you can make sure that your choice is as enriching as possible for your child.  

The rise of the Working Mother

A UK study showed that 76% of mothers return to work by the time their child is 18 months old. In the US, that figure is a little lower, with 71% of mothers working outside the home. In the US, the figure of SAHMs has risen from 1999, its lowest level in history, when only 23% of women chose to stay at home to raise their children, although it is considerably lower than 1967 (when records began), when 49% of American mothers considered themselves "homemakers".

41% of adults interviewed say this rise in working mothers is "bad for society".

Grandparents are still the most popular option of childcare for working parents and is generally considered a good option, if parents are healthy and willing.

Daycare

Let's start with the bad news.

Research by Dutch scientists Vermeer and van IJzendoorn found that being in daycare raised child's cortisol levels (the stress hormone), particularly in very young children (under three years). The children only had these effects while at daycare. It was thought that stressful interactions in the group setting were partly to blame.

Kathy Sylva is a professor at the University of Oxford  who has spent a great deal of time researching the effects of nursery-care on young children. After tracking 3000 children since 1996, she found that early nursery-care did raise aggression in young children moderately at the ages of five and seven. However, this affect was temporary. Increased aggression was absent by age eleven.

In another study of 1000 babies, placed into daycare at three-months, Sylva found no rise in behavioural problems at three-years.

However, Sylva is guarded in her recommendations about daycare:

"For under-twos, it is a careful decision...but there are many, many children in the study who had no bad effects that we could measure...If the child is a healthy child, in a family that is supportive and caring and goes to a high-quality childcare setting, the evidence is that the child is not at risk."

In the 1980s, Belsky undertook a study of 1000 children. It confirms most of what Sylva found more than a decade later about aggression and demonstrated that children in daycare are more disobedient at the age of four-and-a-half. On the positive side, he also found that high-quality childcare leads to an improvement in cognitive and language skills, up to and including 15-years-old.

READ Parents & Babysitters: First Aid Guide for Children

A 2010 review of 50 years of research found no evidence that being in childcare by the age of three predicted behavioural problems later in life. A study from the mid-1970s found that (when a child had a quality family-life and quality daycare) there was no difference in attachment, language, or social skills in children cared for by daycare workers or mothers.

And there may be more positives. Working mothers may be leading to a more equal society and more opportunities for women. A 2015 study of 13,326 women and 18,152 men by Harvard Business School found that women whose mothers were employed outside the home while they were children are:

• More likely to be employed
• More likely to hold supervisory positions
• More likely to earn higher wages.

Meanwhile, men are more likely to:

• Help with household chores
• Care for family members

This was partly due to having a role model of gender-equality. Researcher McGinn says:

"I think for both mothers and for fathers, working both inside and outside the home gives your kids a signal that contributions at home and at work are equally valuable."

Stay-at-Home Mothers, and Making Your Choice

Stay-at-Home Mothers

Staying at home to raise your children is becoming more common again, with 60% of Americans saying that (in an ideal world) a child is better-off with a parent.

Certainly, choosing to stay at-home is not an easy choice, nor a profitable one. 34% of stay-at-home mothers live in poverty (up from 14% in 1970), compared to only 12% of working mothers. In young mothers (under-35), that figure skyrockets to 42%. That's a huge number of women (and their children) living in poverty.

Little research has ever been undertaken into the effects of the stay-at-home mother. Much is theorising and supposition based on the traditional dichotomy of the "good mother" and the "working woman".

However, some interesting research has come out of Norway, where 84% of mothers worked in 2012. A 2013 study by Bettinger and colleagues examined the Cash-for-Care scheme, which was established in 1998, and is still ongoing. This is given to mothers who have children aged between one- (the age at which subsidized maternity leave ceases) and two-years.

About 65% of parents with children aged one- to two-years took Cash-for-Care benefits. The 2013 study measured school attainment in the older siblings of beneficial children (measured by their grades in the final exams of lower-secondary school). It found that of the 68,695 children in the study (all born between 1986 and 1992), those whose parent was able to stay home with a younger sibling experience an average 1.2 grade point increase. The researchers believe the mother being there to help with homework may support the child's learning. However, this is conjecture.

How to choose the best daycare

All the studies are clear on one thing: high-quality daycare is associated with good outcomes. When it came to low-quality day-care, the results were more equivocal. Please bear in mind that anyone over the age of 18, not convicted of child abuse and free of contagious disease is free to open a home-daycare at will in many states of the USA. So how can you find the very best daycare for your child?

READ Daycare vs Grandparents: Who should look after the kids while you work?

• Look for the best. In the UK, check its OFSTED registration (any nursery and any childminder caring for children under 8 for more than 2 hours a week must be OFSTED registered), and in the US, look out for a daycare accredited by National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Only 7000 are.
• Drop by unannounced on a few of your leading contenders, maybe more than once, at different times. A spot-check is a great way to make sure if everything's as it should be. Look for:
  •  Cleanliness
  • Childproofing
  • Adult-child ratio (the more staff the merrier).
  • Staff interaction with the children
  • That there isn't an unusually high turnover of staff throughout the day
  • A separate baby area
• When you visit, look around and ask yourself questions:
  • Are the children all involved in activities, or play?
  • Are all toys and books in a reasonable state of repair?
• Ask the manager questions:
  • What qualifications does each member of staff have (childcare is mostly unregulated in many countries: be suspicious of a daycare where most of the staff are "working towards" low level qualifications)
  • Would your child have a named carer? (avoid daycares that don't have a named-carer system in place). Can you have a photograph of your child's named carer, should you choose their daycare, so you can get your child used to their face and make the transition easier?
  • What are their policies (to TV time; to sickness; to discipline)?
• Drop by unannounced several times once you've picked your daycare, to make sure everything's running smoothly.
• If you're not happy with the daycare, move your child immediately. Your child should not live with substandard daycare.

Increasing Enrichment in the Home

The home can be an enriching environment. If you choose to stay home with your children, you might be interested to know about Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. In brief, Gardner said there were eight specific types of intelligence that must be nurtured (nothing to do with passing a Mensa IQ test). These intelligences are:

• Interpersonal - understanding others
• Intrapersonal - knowing yourself
• Verbal/Linguistic - language skills
• Visual/Spatial - design skills
• Musical/Rhythmic - as it says on the tin
• Logical/Mathematical - analytic skills
• Bodily/Kinaesthetic -physical skills (often good with sport)
• Naturalist - understanding nature

READ Become How You Want Your Children to Be

To provide an enriching home, you need to nurture and celebrate all types of intelligence.

In an animal study, researchers put rats into two different environment. One environment was stark and bare, and the rats were totally alone; one environment was full of toys and other rats. When they performed intelligence tests, it was exactly as you might expect: the rats with toys and rat-friends to play with were smarter than the rats left alone in a sterile tank and given nothing but food and water.

Nurturing a child doesn't have to be expensive.

• Buy plenty of reading books (secondhand are fine), colouring books and crayons, pens and paper. Read with them nightly, and encourage them to write. Help them find word games on the computer. Let them colour, and draw freely. Doing all this will boost their Verbal/Linguistic skills, and their Visual/Spatial skills.
• Do some fun experiments with your child at home: show how a Mento and diet coke make a geyser that shoots up to the sky; see if you can make a parachute so that an egg can be thrown from a chair and land without cracking (that's Logical/Mathematical).
• Tests show listening to Mozart makes kids smarter, but if they just stuff their fingers in their ears, why not encourage them to make their own music? Drums, piano, guitar, violin (any instrument) will all boost brain development and are great for enriching Musical-Rhythmic intelligence.
• Dress-up, taking part in an acting club, or a good kick-about are all good for boosting Bodily/Kinaesthetic intelligence.
• Walks in woodlands, caring for a pet or a spot of gardening are all great ways to boost your child's Naturalist intelligence.
• Take your kids to activities that allow them to mix with other children of their own age; ensure they have time to talk on the phone, and play board games with your child to teach them how to lose (and win) gracefully. That's Interpersonal covered!
• Let your child have space to be alone, a room of just their own, and a private hobby you don't do. Spending time in their own head will get them used to their thoughts and feelings, and boost those Intrapersonal skills, too.

There is no conclusion to be had here. Whether you choose to stay at home or to work, whatever choice you make for your family must be your choice.

Mother knows best!