Last week I was interviewed for an extensive feature article which appeared in the Adelaide Sunday Mail. My ‘child abuse’ quote in relation to child-care was focused upon and became a major news piece in the same paper which was run in other papers interstate on the same day.
But my comments on child-care were misunderstood.
I was talking only about the ramifications for babies in long day care.
I didn’t use the words “child abuse’. I quoted them. The owner of a child care facility had said to me:
Mem, when we look back at the quality of child-care for babies at this time in our history, with the terrible ratios of carers-to-children that we currently have, people are going ask us how we allowed such child abuse to happen.
Nor did I say a word against child-care in general, let alone well-resourced, good child care; or part-time care for any child; or care by family, or friends.
Child care is about the choices people have to make. We had to make them too. Parents have an absolute right to put their babies into care but shouldn’t they be allowed to make — at the very least — a well-informed decision?
I’m not the expert, for pity’s sake. It’s paediatricians, social workers, and child psychologists who are spelling out for us the worrying, newly-realised implications for brain development and parent-child bonding for babies in long day care.
These babies are known to develop differently and some of their learning (“neural”) pathways don’t develop well at all, due to insufficient touch in their first four months. It’s not opinion — well-researched analysis has existed for many years.
So there it is: everyone’s too frightened to whisper, let alone talk out loud about babies being in care from three weeks for 60 hours a week.
How babies themselves are feeling, developing, or suffering isn’t on any agenda. It’s the elephant in the room. So I confronted it. I went out on a limb and stood up for the babies.
Surprisingly, I found myself in a lovely forest of agreement — apart from a few scary book-burners who are still so furious they can’t think straight.
This time round I had no choice but to take the praise, the blame and the controversy on the chin. Never again. Talk to the real experts next time, and see what happens.
Yes, good old Mem; shoots from the lip and then when what she says proves to be unpopular (or just idiotic) she tries to backtrack at a million miles a hour. She had DAYS to contact the Advertiser, tell them she’d been misquoted and ask for a clarification to be printed. Instead she basked in all the praise from women who have had the luxury of staying at home to look after their children and for whom childcare has never been an issue and only pipes up now because it hit the national stage – to howls of protest. And yes, I am still maintaining the rage on the phonics debate…
My experience is limited to one childcare centre, and the children my friends and I entrusted to its staff from the age of 6 months. But without any doubt our kids did far better than they would have done if left at home. It was very noticeable how much more advanced in every way they were, than the kids we knew who did not have regular childcare. So some kids under 6 months may suffer- but I am very cautious about condemning childcare centres. They can be very good indeed.
Well I certainly did not misunderstand Mem Fox’s words……trying to down play it does not make it go away either. She told people that their children don’t want them if they have to put them in child care. There are many reasons women have babies, mostly because they get pregnant and this narrow upper class view of women who care about careers more than their children was not well recieved, especially by working single mothers who following Mem’s tone should run to the abortion clinic…..
It was more than controversial, it crossed the line.
“I just tremble,” she said. “I don’t know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work.
“I know you want a child, and you have every right to want a child, but does the child want you if you are going to put it in childcare at six weeks?
“I don’t think the child wants you, to tell the honest truth. I know that’s incredibly controversial.”
Oh whatever Mem!
Just another reason for me (as a working mother with a 1 and 3 year old) to feel guilty.
Like I didn’t have enough reasons already.
Thanks a lot.