Raising Babies: Should under 3s go to nursery?. Steve Biddulph

of the financial independence and self-esteem that goes with being in the paid workforce. They use nursery more when their child is over three and ready for some social and educational input. Sliders consider their children’s needs and attempt to find a family-friendly balance. Significantly, and thankfully, sliders are a much larger group – they outnumber slammers by about 8:1.

      Of course, parents sometimes have to slide faster than they would wish. They are often forced to do so by economic pressures, as well as the loneliness that confronts mothers in commuter suburbs or apartment blocks where there is little other way of participating in the wider world. Since fathers are assumed to be going to work, the problems – and joys – of parenthood are largely left with the mother, though in a significant positive trend, increasing numbers of couples now reverse roles, or even take a year off work in rotation, so that their children can have a loving parent to care for them for at least the first two years of life. This non-sexist arrangement seems to work quite well, but again requires employer flexibility and some willingness by fathers to break old stereotypes.

      The health consequences of distant parenting

      Does it really matter if a child is close to its parents? We usually assume that close parent–child bonds are the fundamentals of a happy start to life. But why must this be so? Do we really need closeness to grow up well?

      A unique and little-known American study was carried out into just this question, beginning with young adults in the 1950s and revisiting them 35 years later when they were in late middle age. Detailed interviews and medical assessments were carried out at the start of the study, including questions about how close they felt to their mother and their father.²

      When the subjects were tracked down 35 years later, their medical records were accessed and extensive assessments and interviews were carried out. What was discovered was quite astounding: 91 per cent of those who did not have a close relationship with their mothers (by their own assessment) had been diagnosed with a serious medical illness in mid-life – double the rate of those who reported a warm relationship. Closeness to fathers, or the lack of it, predicted similar differences in health. Worst off of all in health were those who had been close to neither mother or father.

      The health conditions included heart disease, cancer, ulcers, alcoholism, hypertension and chronic asthma. As recent brain and immune system studies have revealed, love keeps you well. And the effects of love in childhood seem to keep on maintaining your health through life. Researcher Dr Norman Anderson, who reviewed these studies in 2003, was able to find over 20 similar studies, with 55,000 participants in total, all of which validated these findings. Being close to one’s parents does matter, and it matters long after you have grown up.

      Home-raised children

      Apart from slammers and sliders, there is still a large group of parents – around 60 per cent – whose children never see the inside of a day nursery, and who move from family home, spiced up with time in the care of grandparents, relatives, friends or childminders, directly to pre-school and full-time school. It is interesting to compare countries in this regard. In Germany and Italy this home-rearing group is large – about 90 per cent, in Sweden around 50 per cent, but in the US only 35 per cent. The variations between countries indicate different values in those cultures but, even allowing for these differences, in every developed country a significant number of parents – usually mothers, but increasingly also fathers – forego employment opportunities, interrupt their personal goals, and direct their energies towards home, children and community, at least for this short period of their lives, and would not have it any other way. When interviewed, these parents invariably say they would like their role recognized and valued more, and would also like their eventual return to work to be made easier by flexible work and retraining support. They also argue strongly for paid parental leave, so that the valuable service they provide in parenting is rewarded by the larger community.

      These three lifestyles – slamming, sliding, or home-rearing – are the options parents of the under-threes can choose between. You too have these choices – or should do. Many of us in the 1960s and 1970s fought hard to win the right for women to have careers, and this fight still continues. But increasingly now we have to fight for the right of parents – of both sexes – to step out of paid careers if they choose, in order to properly care for their children; and this will certainly be demanded by future generations. We have a right to parent, and children have a right to receive full-time love.

      Nursery uptake and social class

      It is interesting to note that attitudes to nursery care are different in different social groups across the UK. The Sure Start programme – the government’s system of parent support centres and home visitors – has been acclaimed worldwide for providing help at the most beneficial and crucial time. Sure Start includes a range of services, among them the offering of childcare nursery places. Yet in the traditional blue-collar regions of the UK, organizers often find it almost impossible to get parents to take up the nursery places available. A centre director told the Guardian newspaper:

      ‘Parents round here don’t want to use day nurseries – they don’t want to leave their children with people they don’t know. This is their precious child and they don’t want to hand them over to strangers. We’re registered and inspected by OFSTED and we have qualifications, but they don’t trust all that. We’re attempting a big cultural shift.’³

      The article went on to report that:

      ‘On the other side of Birmingham, on another large housing estate, Chelmsley Wood, the mothers at the Sure Start project have very strong views on the subject. As one of the first projects of its kind, it runs the services parents asked for – a drop-in centre, programmes to support parents, encouraging them to read and sing nursery rhymes with their children – but it has no daycare. One of the mothers, Kate, is planning to go back to work, but only when her son is at school: “Tom is my only child, he’s so precious. I’m frightened and not sure about daycare. It would worry me too much, that he was spending too much time with other people.”’

      Another mother, Clare, went back to work after three months with her first child. That was eight years ago, and this time around she’s determined to do it differently: ‘I missed out on so much and I said I would never do that again. I will wait until my children are in full-time school.’

      Blue-collar parents are much more reluctant to use nurseries than the middle classes. So are immigrant parents and refugees. A higher value is placed on family cohesion among the poor, and often it is all that stands between them and annihilation. Many US daycare centres now deliberately recruit staff from Hispanic backgrounds because these young women tend to be more loving, tender, patient and good humoured – more natural, and good with children. Parents prefer them. White carers tended to be more self-centred, less caring and colder. Are those cultures that are closer to an agrarian, family-oriented way of life the last receptacles of the ability to love children? What does that say for where we are heading?

      Having it all?

      The media must accept a lot of the responsibility for shaping the attitudes and beliefs of young parents as to what is normal: ‘You can have it all’ is a very advertiser-friendly editorial line. A recent magazine article on childcare choices featured photos of unusually good-looking mothers with their babies at the beach. One of the women – a fashion model – told the interviewer: ‘I stayed home for the first six months. Then I put him in a nursery full-time and returned to work. I really needed my independence.’ It was a strange choice of words – a mother is not dependent on her child. (Independence is what you get when you leave your parents – not when you leave your child!) Perhaps what she really meant was ‘I really needed my freedom.’ To be free of this demanding little person, to focus on me again. Except, put that way, it doesn’t sound quite so edifying.

      Several years ago one of the largest bookstore chains in the