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Placing children under three in long day care can damage their intellectual and emotional development according to parenting expert Steve Biddulph, international best-selling author, whose latest book is entitled "Raising Babies: Should Under 3s Go to Nursery?" Australian-born Biddulph says babies placed in day care from the age of six months could become anti-social and aggressive. Child care facilities struggle to meet the needs of such young children. 

Mr. Biddulph said the worst child care centres were negligent, frightening and bleak, and the babies experienced a nightmare of bewildered loneliness that was heartbreaking to watch. He said nothing equalled one-to-one care for a child under two. "Infant's brains need to be stimulated by loving interaction if they are to develop properly. Nannies can work well as a halfway solution if parents are very lucky with the person they find." He said care by family or friends was a much better option to child care centres. 

Biddulph's greatest concern was for "slammers", urban professionals who put their children in full-time child care before the age of six months until school age. Biddulph's views have drawn the predictable outrage from some Australian parenting "experts", who say child care only has a negative effect if it "was not done properly". Early childhood researcher, Margaret Sims claims "There is no reason why someone who is paid to do the job in a good environment can't provide good or even better care than a parent". 

Margaret Sims appears to have overlooked the essential ingredient called “love”. What an infant needs besides appropriate nourishment is a one-to-one relationship with someone who loves him/her and thinks he/she is the most wonderful baby in the world. An employee in a child care centre cannot provide that. And speaking of nourishment, our Health Department and the World Health Organization promote breastfeeding. It would be virtually impossible for mothers to breastfeed babies left in long day care, so why does our government subsidize child care centres but not mothers who care for their own children? 

The impact of contemporary (second-stage) feminism which burst like a toxic mushroom cloud on the horizons of the developed world in the 1970s has been pernicious. Unlike the feminism of the suffragettes who saw the interests of women and children as intertwined, feminist ideology of the 1970s viewed the role of wife and mother as oppression of women by a male-dominated patriarchal society from which women must be liberated. 

Initially these latter-day feminists demanded that fathers and mothers must share the care of children equally, but as the fathers fled, or more usually, were discarded, the demands escalated for government, i.e. taxpayer, funding of long day care centres to free women for "fulfilling" jobs in the paid workforce. The late Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminist Mystique", which laid out the ambit claims for modern feminism, said that the duties of housework and mother are "peculiarly suited to the capacities of feeble-minded girls". Well now, who's minding the children while their mothers seek high-powered careers? 

Pro-family politicians are countering such negativism with positive initiatives. In the US Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Congressman Lee Terry (R-NE) have proposed a Parents' Tax Relief Act, which would extend tax credits to stay-at-home parents serving as the primary at-home caregiver for children age 6 and under. The Act is expected to be introduced shortly in the House and Senate.  

In Australia, Alan Cadman MHR, member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family & Human Services Inquiry into Balancing Work and Family, has initiated recommendations for more choice-based child care funding. Come to our public meeting to hear him and Mrs. Tanya O'Brien who will speak about why she has chosen to homeschool her children.

Endeavour Forum Inc. Public Meeting

Caring for Children

7.30 pm on Friday, 25th May 2007 at St. Michael's Hall, 2 Victory Blvde, Ashburton, Vic. 3147. Speakers:

Mr. Alan Cadman, MHR (Lib) on "Child Care Funding" and Mrs. Tanya O'Brien of the Helpers, on "Homeschooling my children". The meeting will be chaired by Mrs. Angela Conway, Research Officer, Australian Family Association, and the Opening Prayer will be said by Mrs. Anne Lastman of Victims of Abortion. The vote of thanks will be given by Mr. John Ballantyne, editor, News Weekly. All welcome, $5 donation appreciated. RSVP: Prue Oldham, Ph 9583 6835 or Margaret Butts, (03) 9589 5039