[lovemenot]

This is a good challenge. You may disagree, but I believe that overall (some individuals may fall far from the mean), there can be no better way to determine how best to do parenting than the way that parents actually do it.

It is inconceivable to me that rules (morality, laws, tradition or whatever) should decide against parents in the large. Evolution has determined that parents will always be the ones most vested in their children's general well-being.

[tremendulo]

Nah, everybody used to think slavery was OK. Yet it wasn't. Plenty of people know they shouldn't smoke. Yet they do. Evolution is 'red in tooth and claw'.

Let me re-formulate my explanation of why daycare is bad:

(1) Small children need love and attention; they also need adult help available; they need to feel secure. (2) Love, attention and help aren't raw undifferentiated qualities. The quality depends on the source. A familiar source which knows the child is required. (3) The anxiety induced by an early childhood separation from such sources is potentially traumatic and long-term.

Therefore, young children shouldn't be separated from their mothers and/or close relatives.

[mcv]

Nobody is arguing for abandoning kids 24/7 to strangers. A good daycare is staffed by trained professionals who know how to take care of children, and know how to provide the love, attention and security that children need. Furthermore, I'm arguing for a maximum of 3 days of daycare, so each parent still has their own full day with the children, as well as the entire weekend with the family.

Yes, being abandoned by your parents can be traumatic, but that's not what daycare is. You're attacking a straw man. (The existence of bad daycares notwithstanding; they do exist, are hopefully rare, but should definitely be avoided.)

[tremendulo]

The term 'professional' is misleading, since

(1) There's no such thing as a professional parent. It's a relationship. (2) Professionals have expertise in some domain, e.g. heart surgery, but as the article shows, there's no expert knowledge of childcare. There's no prevailing child-rearing philosophy. (3) Professionals are paid significantly above the minimum wage.

>know how to provide the love

No. A mother loves her child, but love can't be provided as a commodity, like complimentary chocolates. Even if a carer tries her hardest, this will fall short, because she doesn't love the child. She's also heavily constrained by having to follow procedures, timetables, attend to other children, and so on.

>Yes, being abandoned by your parents can be traumatic, but that's not what daycare is.

That's exactly what it is: somewhere to put your toddler while you head off to work. Or it's a convenience. But in reality small children need someone they trust and are close to available at all times.

[mcv]

Yes, they are professionals. They have been trained for this, unlike parents, who surprisingly often have no idea what they're doing.

Are parents not constrained? Parents have jobs, households to run, appointments, groceries, etc. I see parents dragging children through shopping malls because the child does not want to come along and the parent does not want to deal with it.

And who are you to tell people who they do or do not love? You have a ridiculously dogmatic view of how people work. Your view is wrong.

Just wait until you have children, and give it a try. If it's a good daycare, children will love it there. (If it's a bad one, find a better one.)

[tremendulo]

Not professionals. For example, we don't call a fast food server a professional, yet he is trained.

Yes, a mother is constrained by having to look after her other children and the household, but it is an organic set of constraints which is customised to the particular family and has arisen in part out of their previous interactions and out of her family traditions. Furthermore it can be altered (by her). It's not a bureaucratic scheme designed to maximise the convenience and minimise the legal/financial risk to the daycare and its staff.

Yes, there are horrific families and there are no doubt daycare workers who are more affectionate than others. But this doesn't affect the argument.

>And who are you to tell people who they do or do not love?

Who do I have to be? I've merely claimed that daycarers don't love the kids in their charge. I think our great-grandmothers would have known this instinctively and would be horrified at the direction we have taken as a society in this regard.