[ams6110]

Nobody will care for or about a child more than that child's mother (barring psychological abnormalities in the mother). Father a close second.

Even the best daycare is going to devote only a fraction of the instruction/attention to any individual child.

If your approach as a parent is to give "the kid" ice cream and electronic distractions, I think you should seriously reevaluate your priorities.

[roel_v]

"Nobody will care for or about a child more than that child's mother (barring psychological abnormalities in the mother)."

Well, technically I guess I can't disagree with you because you said 'care... more', but I assume you meant that to also mean 'care... better', which is about as wrong as it gets. Why would anyone instinctively know what's 'best' for a child's development, let alone better than trained professionals in a professionally build environment? There are tens (hundreds, more likely) of thousands of people working every day to understand how children develop best, and convert that into actual practice. It doesn't stand the smell test to say that all that is nonsense because parents somehow know better.

The other aspect is how much love children get, and yes of course nobody loves children like their parents. But again there is no reason to think that just 'being loved in close proximity', say, 4 hours a day + weekends is worse than having a parent around 24/7. Nor does 'love' equate 'stimulate good development'. If you are going to claim that in the 'good old days' when children were at home all day with mom they would be doing crafts and nature education and going to playgrounds with equipment designed to stimulate activity in a safe environment, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale that you might be interested in.

[Torgo]

Most of the time I spent with my dad in my earliest days he was parked on a couch with a beer in hand not even looking at me. I consider that time far more valuable than being babysat later on.

[__z]

Growing up my father actively hated me and wanted me out of his life even though I did live with him until adulthood. Told me how unwanted I was every single day. Yeah, stand up guy. I had a baby sitter (my father's cousin - she was paid and babysat other kids at her house all day) who loved me more than anyone, including my mother. For me time spent with the baby sitter was more more caring, loving, nurturing, etc., and better in every single way than time spent with either of my parents. I'm sure my baby sitter would have jumped in front of a bus for me.

My sister ran an after school program for mostly disadvantaged kids and I am certain that she cared for and about her children more than some of their parents. Not all, just some.

You see examples of extended family stepping in all the time making sure children are cared for and their needs met when the parents are doing a horrible job.

Unfortunately we do not live in an idealized world like many might believe, otherwise there wouldn't be infanticide, honor killings, child abuse, child neglect, child abandonment, etc., etc.

I'm not sure what my point is other than "some people's experiences are different from yours." (I'm sure you knew that, just chiming in with my story as a counterpoint)

[roel_v]

In daycare (a good one), you're not 'babysat'. Educators do activities with children, fun ones and educational ones and preferably both at the same time, children play with other children, etc. Meh, probably a moot discussion at this point, I was just saying - daycare is not 'let's park the children there'.

[rayiner]

Caring is a separate issue from having the aptitude and temperament for the labor of child care. I'd do anything for my daughter, but let's face it, she's boring. She's slightly smarter than a puppy, and while it's all magical a couple of hours a day, I can't imagine engaging with her day-in and day-out, any more than I can imagine being a factory worker who just does one movement all day long. I'd go crazy.

The daycare worker certainly wouldn't run in front of a bus to protect my kid, which I'd do in a heartbeat. But that's not a day-to-day need.

[mr_luc]

Have you taken a look at the study this article is written about?

I'd agree that it makes intuitive sense that childcare could do better than exhausted working parents, and possibly even emotionally drained stay-at-home parents, but another poster pointed out that this study seems to say "people who can afford daily childcare have children with better outcomes" -- which might correlate pretty closely with "wealthier people's kids have better outcomes", which the research already told us.

As an aside, these kinds of discussions (where HN talks about the world's social problems) are the second reason I come to HN. I'll get exposed to great worldviews, from generally smart people, expressed by people who speak my language.

And child care, together with the possibly related problem of currently worse outcomes for children of single-parent families, are social problems that are potentially immensely valuable for society to solve.

[meric]

While I agree with you I'm not sure that is a good use of "certainly"...It depends how many kids the worker is with and which one is her favourite, as well as the character of the daycare worker. There were plenty of strange* men volunteering to die in frozen waters to save women and children when the titanic went down, for example.

* in the stranger sense of the word.

[__z]

Also Wesley Autrey, the "Subway Hero" who dove onto the tracks of the oncoming 1 train in order to save a stranger who had a seizure and fell onto the tracks. He held the man down in a drainage trench and the subway cars passed over them. That's about as literal as "jumping in front of a bus" as it gets.

Plus all the teachers at Sandy Hook who gave their lives protecting their students.

Those two are just off the top of my head. The willingness to put one's self in danger for others isn't exclusive to parents.

[__z]

> Nobody will care for or about a child more than that child's mother (barring psychological abnormalities in the mother). Father a close second.

That statement is useless because it is a tautology. If the parents don't care about or for their children (and trust me, many, many don't) according to you by definition they must have a "psychological abnormality." Being a selfish dick is a bad trait but "psychological abnormally" is going quite far. There's plenty of selfish dicks in the world who couldn't give a rat's ass about their children, including deadbeat dads (or moms) and others. Only in an idealistic, fantasy world do parents universally care for and about their children.

Many people who care about their children are very aware they don't have the ability to care for their children. That's a big reason why adoption (family adoption and stranger adoption) exists. The gender role assumption is pretty weird too. Some people have two fathers and an unknown egg donor for example - do these children have less care than someone with two heterosexual parents? Or do two moms trump a mom and a dad?