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I was a single parent with one child. Seldom got any assistance or support. Finding quality childcare and being able to afford it was horrific. I did not use day cares, always in-home care by moms with their own kids who took in a few others for extra money. Child day cares are filth pits.
Couples with children should be grateful they have one another to raise the children. Time to buck up and stop competing with that family named Jones. One primary breadwinner households can be achieved, with sacrifices.
Other cultures value their elders to help care for children. We seem to want to do it the hard way.
This! I lived next door to a multi-generational Hispanic family, that ran a day care during the day. Both parents worked, so grandma and grandpa were the day care workers. There were one or two 20-somethings living in the basement, but they (he?) seemed to work during the day, too. The parents and grandparents knew all the kids in the neighborhood, because they'd been in the grandma/grandpa daycare when they were small. Half the neighborhood was like extended family, while most of the other half was retired people.
Elders can be real assets in many ways. If they're from a non-mainstream US family, they can be carriers of culture, imparting traditions to the grandkids. Grandma can have dinner already in process when the working adults get home. They can fill a variety of roles.
This! I lived next door to a multi-generational Hispanic family, that ran a day care during the day. Both parents worked, so grandma and grandpa were the day care workers. There were one or two 20-somethings living in the basement, but they (he?) seemed to work during the day, too. The parents and grandparents knew all the kids in the neighborhood, because they'd been in the grandma/grandpa daycare when they were small. Half the neighborhood was like extended family, while most of the other half was retired people.
Elders can be real assets in many ways. If they're from a non-mainstream US family, they can be carriers of culture, imparting traditions to the grandkids. Grandma can have dinner already in process when the working adults get home. They can fill a variety of roles.
Well we are also a very mobile society which renders that not possible. And we tend to have children later, not at 21.
When I was growing up, my parents lived within 200 miles of our grandparents for only 6 months. And most of the time it was halfway across the country. My wife was different, but she grew up on a farm and lived in the same place until she was 18.
My wife's parents were halfway across the country when we had kids while mine were close. My mother helped take care of the kids for about 5 years, but at that point she was 75 and really too old for that. My wife's mother was semi-invalid in a nursing home at that point. And by the time our oldest was 7, we moved halfway across the country, so we couldn't even use my mother for baby-sitting.
When I think of some of my best friends when they had kids, one's mom was in her upper 80s and the father was deceased, another's mother was deceased and her father was hundreds of miles away, another had a deceased father and a mother a couple hundred miles away and a 4th had both parents deceased. None of them had children before 30.
Extended family is nice, but its just not possible for most people these days.
No they’re not. Study after study show that there is no detrimental effect on children who attend high quality daycares. Sure, they’re not home with a parent (yes Dads can stay home too), but no SAHP is spending 100% of the hours between 7 and 5 doing activities with their child. That’s why studies show that some kids with a SAHP are less ready for kindergarten than kids in daycare. And those in a daycare that’s non home based do better than those in home based daycares.
So once your kids go to K-12 school, you’ll no longer be raising them? Just kidding. Of course you will because school hours just like daycare hours are not 100% of the hours in a week.
We homeschool so yes, personally I do raise my kids myself instead of outsourcing it.
A “high quality” daycare just pushes school on them at too early of an age for it to matter in the long run. It literally does not make a bit of difference once they hit upper elementary.
My motivations are not purely academic. They mostly are not academic, in fact. So, that argument, even if it was correct, doesn’t matter to me. My goal is well-rounded kids with good character.
Edit: I just reviewed a variety of articles and studies about outcomes. The longitudinal benefit of early learning is mostly for at-risk students - those who would have truancy problems, those whose parents would otherwise not be engaged, those who may not graduate, etc. It doesn’t impact GPAs, test scores, that kind of thing, generally speaking. The fact of the matter is that kids are not ready for formal learning until around age 7ish. This has been studied for ages and no amount of preschool or “high quality daycare” is going to change the way we were designed.
Last edited by andrea3821; 09-30-2023 at 01:43 AM..
We homeschool so yes, personally I do raise my kids myself instead of outsourcing it.
A “high quality” daycare just pushes school on them at too early of an age for it to matter in the long run. It literally does not make a bit of difference once they hit upper elementary.
My motivations are not purely academic. They mostly are not academic, in fact. So, that argument, even if it was correct, doesn’t matter to me. My goal is well-rounded kids with good character.
Edit: I just reviewed a variety of articles and studies about outcomes. The longitudinal benefit of early learning is mostly for at-risk students - those who would have truancy problems, those whose parents would otherwise not be engaged, those who may not graduate, etc. It doesn’t impact GPAs, test scores, that kind of thing, generally speaking. The fact of the matter is that kids are not ready for formal learning until around age 7ish. This has been studied for ages and no amount of preschool or “high quality daycare” is going to change the way we were designed.
And I have done some research too…
Politicians, economists, and educators are citing two studies, the Perry Preschool Study and the Abecedarean Project, both of which followed low-income kids who’d received public preschool education. Both studies found enormous benefits in early education; the children who received it were much more likely to hold down jobs, have savings accounts, and stay out of prison than their non-preschool-educated counterparts. Soft skills learned in preschool—how to regulate emotions, how to work in a group—were shown to be helpful later in life and harder to train into people as they got older. Many economists, among them Nobel laureate James Heckman, have advocated for preschool as one of the most efficient uses of education dollars.
Focusing systematically on LEARNING ABILITIES through PLAY for your 3- to 6-year-old, over and above knowledge and skills, is proven to develop QUANTUM LEAPS in their COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATIVE and SELF-REGULATIVE development, enabling them to master ANYTHING in the future with speed and ease.
In our rapidly-changing world, there’s NO better way to prepare your child for an outstanding academic future, combined with exceptional personal success and happiness.
This is what 46+ years of research and practice into giftedness/high capabilities, brain development and learning by 12 distinguished educationalists and developmental psychologists tells us about what young children REALLY need before the age of 6… in addition to a loving, stimulating and playful family environment.
All of us find ourselves thinking about and judging young children’s different abilities from time to time. We also tend to believe that while children’s educational and life experiences may affect for better or for worse the way they put their abilities to use, the abilities themselves are a given. We behave as though they are a part of our genetic inheritance, like the colour of our eyes, or the number of fingers on our hands.
However, Vygotsky considered that we must view human psychological development as a social achievement rather than an individual one. Young children’s abilities are not innate, or simply determined by biology. Children acquire their abilities with and from the others around them – from the social, cultural and educational context of their lives.
By the time my twin brother and I were 7 we were fluent in speaking and understanding French, English and Spanish. I’ve been speaking all three languages to our kids. ( I started while they were still in the womb) at 3 years old they have the ability to speak and understand what their father and I are telling them.
We have language days…One day we may spend the entire day speaking French or one day English or Spanish and they are required to speak in the language of the day and not just to us, but to each other. They can count to 10 in all three languages.
If the government shuts down, it will end funding for 220,000 providers of child care, about 80% of all child care centers nationwide. It will be nothing short of driving off a cliff. About 30% of providers who took the COVID Rescue grants said that they would fold without the funds. The child care shortage already costs families $78B/year, and businesses another $23B/year, according to an analysis by the nonprofit group ReadyNation.
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Well, I suppose some have a stay at home parent, some have grandparent help, some have one parent work part-time or own their own business, some hit the jackpot on childcare, some hit the jackpot on employers willing to be flexible, etc. etc. etc.
None of these circumstances by itself cover a majority of two-parent families, but (with a lot of stress and difficulty) most find a way, somehow. One solution works for 20% of them, another for 15% of them, another for 25% of them, until eventually just about everybody figures out a way to make it work.
But it's really quite precarious if you HAVE to have two incomes to get by (usually a result of buying a house that required both incomes to qualify!)
Politicians, economists, and educators are citing two studies, the Perry Preschool Study and the Abecedarean Project, both of which followed low-income kids who’d received public preschool education. Both studies found enormous benefits in early education; the children who received it were much more likely to hold down jobs, have savings accounts, and stay out of prison than their non-preschool-educated counterparts. Soft skills learned in preschool—how to regulate emotions, how to work in a group—were shown to be helpful later in life and harder to train into people as they got older. Many economists, among them Nobel laureate James Heckman, have advocated for preschool as one of the most efficient uses of education dollars.
Focusing systematically on LEARNING ABILITIES through PLAY for your 3- to 6-year-old, over and above knowledge and skills, is proven to develop QUANTUM LEAPS in their COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATIVE and SELF-REGULATIVE development, enabling them to master ANYTHING in the future with speed and ease.
In our rapidly-changing world, there’s NO better way to prepare your child for an outstanding academic future, combined with exceptional personal success and happiness.
This is what 46+ years of research and practice into giftedness/high capabilities, brain development and learning by 12 distinguished educationalists and developmental psychologists tells us about what young children REALLY need before the age of 6… in addition to a loving, stimulating and playful family environment.
All of us find ourselves thinking about and judging young children’s different abilities from time to time. We also tend to believe that while children’s educational and life experiences may affect for better or for worse the way they put their abilities to use, the abilities themselves are a given. We behave as though they are a part of our genetic inheritance, like the colour of our eyes, or the number of fingers on our hands.
However, Vygotsky considered that we must view human psychological development as a social achievement rather than an individual one. Young children’s abilities are not innate, or simply determined by biology. Children acquire their abilities with and from the others around them – from the social, cultural and educational context of their lives.
By the time my twin brother and I were 7 we were fluent in speaking and understanding French, English and Spanish. I’ve been speaking all three languages to our kids. ( I started while they were still in the womb) at 3 years old they have the ability to speak and understand what their father and I are telling them.
We have language days…One day we may spend the entire day speaking French or one day English or Spanish and they are required to speak in the language of the day and not just to us, but to each other. They can count to 10 in all three languages.
Speaking multiple languages is cool but how useful is it in the real world, barring a life of travel, a job requiring bilingualism, or living in an area with a high percentage of one of those populations?
You are spot on that the soft skills are the necessary components of childhood learning but again, one does not need a “high quality daycare” to provide that environment. It can be learned in any environment including low quality ones. We all eventually learn to stand in line, be patient, not scream at people when we don’t get our way….those things come with maturity, not specific training. The specific training is needed at younger ages bc they don’t have the maturity for it yet. If one waits…it comes naturally. But sure, lining up 2yo kids to walk to the playground is a task the daycare people have to cope with.
And again, outcomes might make more of a difference for at-risk youth but the bottom line still is parents who care. The mom who commits to taking her child to daycare or preschool so she herself can work sets up a HABIT for BOTH parent and child that lasts into high school potentially, and maybe even becomes a habit for life in the child. That’s wonderful. But there are other ways to teach that, obviously.
Teaching kids how to learn I think is also part of what you’re getting at as it translates into huge potential down the road and yet again, anybody can teach that, doesn’t have to be daycare or preschool. It circles right back to the parents, backing up my first post on this thread about prioritizing a parent staying home instead of seeking out two incomes.
Speaking multiple languages is cool but how useful is it in the real world, barring a life of travel, a job requiring bilingualism, or living in an area with a high percentage of one of those populations?
You are spot on that the soft skills are the necessary components of childhood learning but again, one does not need a “high quality daycare” to provide that environment. It can be learned in any environment including low quality ones. We all eventually learn to stand in line, be patient, not scream at people when we don’t get our way….those things come with maturity, not specific training. The specific training is needed at younger ages bc they don’t have the maturity for it yet. If one waits…it comes naturally. But sure, lining up 2yo kids to walk to the playground is a task the daycare people have to cope with.
And again, outcomes might make more of a difference for at-risk youth but the bottom line still is parents who care. The mom who commits to taking her child to daycare or preschool so she herself can work sets up a HABIT for BOTH parent and child that lasts into high school potentially, and maybe even becomes a habit for life in the child. That’s wonderful. But there are other ways to teach that, obviously.
Teaching kids how to learn I think is also part of what you’re getting at as it translates into huge potential down the road and yet again, anybody can teach that, doesn’t have to be daycare or preschool. It circles right back to the parents, backing up my first post on this thread about prioritizing a parent staying home instead of seeking out two incomes.
True, it doesn’t have to be daycare. But, it also doesn’t have to be a SAHP. With good quality care and age appropriate learning both lead to great outcomes. It’s time people stop denigrating parents who make choices different from their own regardless of what those choices are. Why not just appreciate that people and families differ and parents make the choices best for theirs.
This! I lived next door to a multi-generational Hispanic family, that ran a day care during the day. Both parents worked, so grandma and grandpa were the day care workers.
Elders can be real assets in many ways. If they're from a non-mainstream US family, they can be carriers of culture, imparting traditions to the grandkids. Grandma can have dinner already in process when the working adults get home. They can fill a variety of roles.
Yes, if everyone has kids in their 20's so grandma is in her 40's when the first grandchild comes. My mother had me at 29 and I had my kids in my 30's. She was retirement and too old for childcare for my kiddos.
Ruth, I wish I had a multi-generational family next door like my mother's generation! There was a study once which predicted the number of children a woman had based on her distance to her mom. The closer the mother, the more likely the daughter would have more than two children. Grandparents count!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
Well we are also a very mobile society which renders that not possible. And we tend to have children later, not at 21.
Extended family is nice, but its just not possible for most people these days.
Yeah, we moved half a country away so my mother's age didn't even matter!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney123
And I have done some research too…
Politicians, economists, and educators are citing two studies, the Perry Preschool Study and the Abecedarean Project, both of which followed low-income kids who’d received public preschool education. Both studies found enormous benefits in early education; the children who received it were much more likely to hold down jobs, have savings accounts, and stay out of prison than their non-preschool-educated counterparts. Soft skills learned in preschool—how to regulate emotions, how to work in a group—were shown to be helpful later in life and harder to train into people as they got older.
Many economists, among them Nobel laureate James Heckman, have advocated for preschool as one of the most efficient uses of education dollars.
Focusing systematically on LEARNING ABILITIES through PLAY for your 3- to 6-year-old, over and above knowledge and skills, is proven to develop QUANTUM LEAPS in their COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATIVE and SELF-REGULATIVE development, enabling them to master ANYTHING in the future with speed and ease.
In our rapidly-changing world, there’s NO better way to prepare your child for an outstanding academic future, combined with exceptional personal success and happiness.
This is what 46+ years of research and practice into giftedness/high capabilities, brain development and learning by 12 distinguished educationalists and developmental psychologists tells us about what young children REALLY need before the age of 6… in addition to a loving, stimulating and playful family environment.
All of us find ourselves thinking about and judging young children’s different abilities from time to time. We also tend to believe that while children’s educational and life experiences may affect for better or for worse the way they put their abilities to use, the abilities themselves are a given. We behave as though they are a part of our genetic inheritance, like the colour of our eyes, or the number of fingers on our hands.
However, Vygotsky considered that we must view human psychological development as a social achievement rather than an individual one. Young children’s abilities are not innate, or simply determined by biology. Children acquire their abilities with and from the others around them – from the social, cultural and educational context of their lives.
I calling b*llsh*t on this.
Abilities are innate. Funny in sports, everyone acknowledges that abilities are innate. There is no social achievement in sports - you can play beside Tom Brady for decades and still stink at football. So, not everyone can pitch a baseball with speed or win the US Open tennis match. We all know sports abilities are largely determined by biology.
Why wouldn't intellectual abilities be innate as well? We know that learning disabilities and mental illnesses run in families. So would the opposite be true, that intellectual achievement runs in families? I look at my kiddos and see what parent gave which intellectual genes and traits.
I raised my kiddos as a stay-at-home mom without any fancy preschool stuff. All my kids have their masters degrees and are rising stars at work.
You what matters most? Family dinners! Sure, my kiddos learned to play instruments, attended classical music concerts, visited museums and we talked about literature and history in detail with them. However, it was their innate/biological talents which matter along with a stable family.
Learning to count to 10 in countless languages doesn't matter. People can not be enabling to master ANYTHING in the future with speed and ease. Everyone has their own set of talents and skill sets which limits them.
I've been around long enough to see trends in childcare, go into and out of fashion like women's hemlines. Your post is based a what's in fashion now - affirmative action's everyone is equal nonsense. You should read Animal Farm by Orwell because it's same type of language.
We all know that living from one salary is not possible for a very long time now.
So I guess I did the impossible when I raised a family on an enlisted service member's salary.
Actually if you live within your means, it's not that hard to do. And I was never on any social program or declared bankruptcy. When I utilized debt, I used it as a tool, not as a crutch or anchor.
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