[MrDoom]

The same people who rail on about strangers raising their kids will plop their progeny in front of the television without a second thought.

I neither have nor want kids but at least with a day care you can personally meet the person influencing your kid, rather than leaving it to a faceless media machine and their system of marketing and memetic engineering.

[Qjiggy]

"My kid is being raised by strangers"

If you guys think thats bad. My partner, who i didn't believe in the beginning that she's a lesbian, is raising my daughter with her and partner. Totally singled me out after she gave birth. It was a long, mentally exhausting as well emotionally, until i got the matters settled in court. NOW i see my daughter every week. In her world, she has two dad, one who can grow a beard, and the other who knows how to paint her nails.

It's not at all that bad. I had to come to my own that her other "dad" is not a stranger. That we both equally love her as our own. So to those that refers to Child Service providers as "strangers raising their children". Consider yourself lucky that you can keep that nuclear family idea in your lives. Some do not have a choice and have to let go of the ideal image of what family means; to me.

But for my daughter, well... i see her to be a lucky person too. She has 3 parents, has double birthdays, double christmas, double valentines. She gets to do a lot of activities, well, 2 days with me (on my days off), plus weekends with the others.. thats 4 days of "fun", interaction. So worrying about paying for service to maintain their career, is really none of anyones' business. It's called 'life" and we can only try our best!

just to make a point: i did love my partner. but when she was torn between me and the other, i let her choose and obviously didn't choose me. not gonna lie though, for a looooong time i debated and HATED her. with a passion. i had to come down to my sense and choose whats best for the ones i love(d). And really guys, do you really believe it when girls tell you that she's a lesbian for real in the beginning? it was like a fad few years back for girls to tell guys "oh yea i'm bisexual, i did things with blah blah blah". lets say i thought it was just that. i didnt think she was telling the truth, and i thought that i could "turn" her - boy was i wrong lol

[LadySpock]

	Originally Posted by BostonIan To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Scary thought - blink it away, Common Consensus, blink it away! And don't shows To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. , don't shows them!

I am surprised that this statement appeared in a Washington Times article..though the author did caveat it with "in my opinion..."

"Most home-school students are directly taught by their parents, who love their children enough to make the sacrifice to stay at home to make sure their child is taught in a safe and loving learning environment."

So...parents who do NOT homeschool don't love their children enough???

	Ladies and Gents, I bring you the To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. , for all heretofore unfamiliar with oxytocin's effect of mitigating stress response in stressful situations...such as being abandoned temporarily, repeatedly, by your primary caregiver when you're a helpless three-foot ball of flesh.

Pressure creates a diamond.

[Qjiggy]

You guys are really forcing criticism onto yourself as a parent. Should really not! It's stressful enough to balance our work, family, social (if any).

I can agree that more time parents spend with their children for learning will allow two things. Be smarter than his/her peers and be alienated by the same peers. Should the kids become smart enough and finishes high school at an earlier age, you really want your 17 year old in university with the young adults? Are you raising a potential nobel prize winner, or you raising your child?

What happens, if your child was a genius. Graduated and got accepted at harvard by the age of 17. Does extremely well, and regarded as one of the brightest in their generation. By at age 30, was passed for nobel prize award, so they try again for next 10 years. Ages passes by, and this genius was still living at home because the parents provided all they can for him/her. They become reliant to their parents and not be equipped to handle the world.

The best that any parent can do is spend as much time, everyday. Encourage them to learn and find their own creativity, their own self. And offer support when they seem to like swimming, or have a passion for painting and drawings. Or can just continue gawking at others and see who is the better parent
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[themuzicman]

Originally Posted by LadySpock To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Some people (usually people who are not mothers or fathers themsleves) state that when a woman works outside the home, she and the child's father have to pay strangers to take care of the kids. They wax on about how horrrrrible that is. "OMFG! Strangers raising your kids?!" This is a fallacy of logic and a gross absurdity on several levels. Level one: Stranger Danger? We pay people we barely know (strangers!) to perform key tasks for us like grow / produce our food, deliver our food to us uncontaminated. Treat our food with preservatives, antibiotics, and other chemicals which could cause a number of issues from male pattern baldness and sterility to mutations and DEATH. dispense life saving medications to ourselves and our families fly airplanes while we sit behind them & hope we don't die in a fiery blaze of glory check our vaginas and breasts (women) or check our assholes & prostate glands (men) bury our dead deliver our babies teach our children perform surgical procedures police our neighborhoods protect our country The truth: Childcare providers are simply professionals who provide a service.

However, which one of these has direct supervisory contact with the child for 9+ hours per day, 5 days a week, constituting 40% or so of the child's waking hours? (168-56 hours sleep@8hours/night = 45/112*100=40.1%)

This isn't a medical visit or some anonymous service. This is someone being paid to raise and care for the child for almost half the time it is awake.

So, none of these other services has the impact on a child's day to day life.

	Level 2: Doing time @ Daycare....Doing time @ school if we should keep our kids out of daycare because sending them to daycare would be equivalent to allowing the daycare to raise our kids, then we should also keep our kids out of school because by sending kids to school, we're allowing the teacher and the principal to raise them.

The most formative years of a child's life occur before school begins. Not to say that grade school isn't important, but the impact is less.

Also, children are generally in contact with a teacher for 6-7 hours/day at school, not 9, and they have summer off. So, percentage wise, the time spent in school per a child's life is significantly smaller.

However, I do support homeschoolers for those parents are willing to make that investment.

	The truth: Working parents can spend quality time with their children, and that is what parenting is about.

Ah, but quality time only comes with a quantity of time. You can't just go home to your 2 year old and say, "OK, honey, it's QUALITY TIME!" And think that's going to happen. Quality comes with quantity, especially during the first few years.

And we also need to consider that two working parents are going to have responsibilities at home during the time when the kids are there to keep the household running, which will take additional time away from the child. (And I can tell you that after a long day at work, I'm not ready for quality time when I get home...)

	Level 3: Where's Daddy? People who say women need to be home to take care of the children so strangers don't raise their kids rarely state that daddy needs to do anything other than act as a meal ticket.

That's why I call for a stay at home parent. Historically, the better paying jobs (as a whole) required physical strength and endurance, which men naturally excel at far more than women. As our workplace changes, this is something that can change, as well.

	Hint: If one person has to work 60 hours a week to keep the family afloat, something is radically wrong.

That's called a high cost of living which is perpetrated upon us by our government.

	The truth: Children need both parents - actively engaged & fully present.

True enough. But when both parents work, neither are.

[LadySpock]

	Originally Posted by MrDoom To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The same people who rail on about strangers raising their kids will plop their progeny in front of the television without a second thought.

I'm glad you brought this up.

I have a neighbor who HATED me for workiing outside the home. She was a Stay at Home Mom at the time. She even talked shit about me to neighbors etc.

One day we were talking & she said that she was going to buy a
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so her kids could sit in the corner and teach themselves how to read! I was stunned.

[Storm]

In the future, tele-commutting will be the norm for almost everyone with small children. It's already beginning to happen. That's what people use to do - bring their kids to work with them. Plop them on a blanket while they tended the fields. When they were old enough, the kids joined in the work. Now a days we send them to school at that age.

Pre-school is only a half a day, and kids learn how to interact with other children.

[SarcasticVlad]

This isn't really a complicated issue. It's just people being close-minded idiots as usual. And they like feeling morally superior to others.

"OMG STRANGERS! The Jacksons are so morally inferior to us. We raise our kids on our own. We teach our kids real family values. We are good parents because of that".

Gotcha! Family values. Right. Fuck off.

[themuzicman]

	Originally Posted by SarcasticVlad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	This isn't really a complicated issue. It's just people being close-minded idiots as usual. And they like feeling morally superior to others. "OMG STRANGERS! The Jacksons are so morally inferior to us. We raise our kids on our own. We teach our kids real family values. We are good parents because of that". Gotcha! Family values. Right. Fuck off.

My irony meter just broke.

[SarcasticVlad]

	Originally Posted by themuzicman To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	My irony meter just broke.

I don't think you fully understand what I said. But that's not really my problem. I gotta go eat some pancakes now. Stay healthy.

[SwedenF]

	Originally Posted by thod To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Lol. You are the one that should reread.

Wow, just wow. I don't even know how to reply to that because there are so many things to adress I couldn't possibly single one place to start at. You, have blown my mind. In a very VERY sad way.

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I adore children, I always have. Immediately out of high school I started working as a nanny, and 5 years later I still do (although part time now). I was going to adress things in this thread one by one but it's just too long so I'll simply make a list.

1. I do not teach the children I care for my values, because that's not my job. My job is not to raise the kids. My job is to be there until the parents can be, and to maintain the values the parents wants me to maintain. What does this mean? It means I won't work for a family with ideals I can't relate to, and that when I am hired, I will question them carefully what the rules are in their house, and what values they want their kids to learn. Letting your "kids be raised by strangers", does not mean the stranger is the issue, it's you because clearly you hired someone that sucks at the job they are supposed to do.

2. Having daycare does not mean the same thing in every family. It can mean that you dump your kids there and work long hours, never spend time with them, and have no relation. That does not in any way mean that ALL parents who have their kids in daycare do. The problem is not day care, it's what you make of it. Like some mentioned, there are SAHM who simply let their kids rot in front of a TV, and there are those who work that don't. Focusing on daycare or not is stupid, because you don't need 16 hours a day to have a healthy relationship with your child. Yes, some hours are required, but far more important is the quality of that time.

3. For all of you who go on about how it's terrible for children not to have quality time with their parents, and how stressful daycare is. Life is stressful, life is noisy and life is full of people who will do what they want. You have to learn to deal with it. Out of all the people I know, the ones with working parents are the sanest, most capable and over all admirable people. The ones who were mostly at home are weak, spoiled and over all obnoxious beings. You can be a great SAHM, and you can raise your kids great, but it's not very likely. Equally, you can work and neglect your kids and they'll be terrible. But there is no way to deny the fact that socializing with other human beings early on prepares you for life ahead, and it's something we all must know how to do. It is debatable how early this should happen, yes, but daycare is not nearly as evil as some of you may think.

4. One interesting fact to take into account is difference in cultures. I live in Sweden (shocker, huh?) and here daycare is the absolute norm. SAHM are very rare. The average age for a child to start daycare is around 1-1.5, and our nation is not filled of cold blooded criminals who are ruined from their lack of contact with parents. It works just fine, in majority of cases. Compared with other cultures I've had close contact to where SAHM are the norm, the average child/teen/young adult is far more capable and far less dysfunctional.

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	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Psychology studies have demonstrated that people are willing to take greater risks and show greater care for problems pertaining to family members. In fact, there is a direct correlation between how much risk is taken and how close the family member is to you.

	Originally Posted by Polymath20 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	1) Families members have a greater invested interest in your success.

The first part is absolutely true in many cases. However, as I adress in point 1 above, there are caretakers and there is caretakers. There are those who suck, and shouldn't not be working with it, and there are those who actually take it quite seriously. I don't consider myself "a stranger" or non-relative. When you closely care for someones child, you become part of the family and family bonds by choice are far stronger than bonds by blood, in many cases. I care deeply for the children I take care of, and I am 100% invested in giving them the best chance of success with everything. I am also willing to take just as much risk as if they were my own, because otherwise I would simply not be working with it. You need to not generalize and blame the whole situation, but rather blame those who choose to give their kids to someone who has the wrong attitude to the whole deal.

-----------------------------

Finally, I would like to offer some food for thought for those of you who think daycare is evil and breaks children. One of the kids I cared for had what I would call kids-phobia. Whenever a kid his age touched him or came within a 2m radius, he would completely panic, and if in the same room he'd be very suspicious and weary. He spent most of his time at home around his older brothers and his parents, and did not at all understand or relate to toddlers his own age (he was nearly 2 at the time). It took me A LOT of work to get him to be able to relax and play in a room with other toddlers around. After about 7 months the mother decided to put him in daycare, and nowadays he is a very happy, creative and content 5 year old who loves going to daycare. It's not always evil. There's always two sides of every coin.

[Distance]

Idealism dies when pragmatic need trumps, unless you're cuckoo for Conservatism.

[LadySpock]

Sweden F, bravo.

I will add that 99.9% the kids I know who have SAHMs are exactly as you described.

[Bronk]

Who cares how other people think you should raise your kids? You brought them into this world. Raise them any damn way you please.