This week we have seen headlines screaming that nurseries are turning children
into “thugs”. I have been involved in researching childcare and child
development for 30 years and can categorically state that these claims are
sensationalist.
However, there are certainly documented risks attached to babies spending long
periods of time in nurseries — especially when they stay there right through
till they go to school and the nursery is not very good.
I believe parents have the right to know what the evidence is so that they can
make an informed decision about how they want their child to be brought up
in his or her earliest years. It’s no good shouting down researchers who
report these facts.
It’s partly a question of timing. The good news is that children over two are
served well by going to good nurseries. They start school ready to learn.
In the 1950s and 1960s most mums went back to work — if they did go back to
work — when their children went to school when they were five. Nowadays, in
the United States and, increasingly in this country, it happens when the
baby is under a year old. That is a social change as dramatic as any we have
witnessed in the past 50 years and it is one that has consequences.
For what happens to a baby when the mum is at work? The number of places in
private day nurseries has quadrupled in a decade; parents also use
childminders and nannies to look after their infants.
Is this what most mothers and their babies want? No, I really don’t believe
that it is. Of course, we can’t poll babies — but we can tell from their
body rhythms, their coos, the way they behave. What most mums, dads and
babies want is to spend as much time as possible together but forces of
economic coercion all too often push mothers into the workplace.
We now have evidence from two research studies that shows that when children
are in nursery care for long hours at the beginning of their first year of
life they are more aggressive and disobedient than other children. When
children go to nursery this young, they are at risk even in a good nursery.
People often ask me: how big is the risk? Well, our research study in the US —
we tracked 1,300 children from birth to the age they started school —
suggested that the risks were not huge. In fact, the effect on an individual
child, on average, was small. You’d have to be skilled to look at a crowd of
kids and spot the ones that have been looked after in a nursery since they
were a baby. Early childcare is not going to turn Average Joe into
Axe-murderer Joe and implying so is irresponsible.
But you do not have to have big individual effects to have important social
consequences. Think of a teacher teaching 30 seven-year-olds — half of whom
will have been in childcare since the first year of life for an average of,
say, 20-30 hours a week. Contrast that with a classroom with few such
children. It seems likely that in the first classroom the teacher is going
to spend more time managing the class and less time teaching it. If that
happened, it would be cause for concern for everyone.
If you ask me whether it is possible that babies spending long hours in
sub-standard nurseries contributes to the unruliness teachers now see in
schools I would say “absolutely”. But it’s not the only factor.
I do not want to scaremonger but I do want to push firmly against the notion
that these are small effects or they do not matter. I want to see people
being objective without researchers being accused of shouting down women or
pushing them back to the kitchen.
Some people have worried for years that the fundamental basis of a child’s
ability to form intimate and trusting relationships as an adult will be
compromised by the social changes we are seeing. It is good for a child to
develop a deep-seated emotional confidence that a parent will be there for
him when he wants them. If you begin to tamper with that on a major scale,
who knows what the consequences will be? Might the soaring divorce rate be
even higher, or the marriage rate even lower. Shouldn’t we err on the side
of caution?
I am delighted that this government seems to be listening to the research. I’m
an American and I can tell you that President George W Bush is not
listening. The attitude there is “data be damned”.
Here politicians have their ears to the ground and they can hear parents are
stressed. It now looks as though ministers may extend paid maternity leave
so that mothers can stay at home for a year. That would be fantastic because
it’s what mums and babies want. Mothers must also be protected so that they
are not at risk of losing their jobs if they choose not to return to work
within a year after a child’s birth.
Ministers are listening to the good news part of our research too. Decades of
studies show that there is a time in a child’s life when good quality
nursery care and education is beneficial. The government is showing a
sophisticated appreciation of the fact that children at different ages need
different things.From the age of two or three, children in nurseries with
good-quality education programmes can thrive.
My counsel to parents is: think about how much you need to be employed and how
keen you are to be at home with your baby. These are questions that can be
answered before you consider the scientific evidence. Then think about the
evidence.
STAY-AT-HOME MUMS WHO WON’T LEAVE BABY BEHIND
When child development expert Penelope Leach questioned 1,200 mothers who had
just given birth about their childcare plans, half said they wanted to be
stay-at-home mums.
When they were revisited a year later, the same proportion had done just that.
“They did not want to give the care of their baby to anyone else,” says
Leach.
Most of the rest were working part-time, using grandparents, nannies and
childminders. Only 10% of families had opted to put their babies into a
nursery.
The research is likely to be published this autumn. Until then Leach is wary
of giving away too much but says that the picture that emerges is different
from that in the US, where it is relatively common to find babies spending
long hours in nurseries.
She agrees that under twos in nurseries show slightly lower levels of
co-operation and concentration. And she warns that even some two-year-olds,
especially boys, are not ready for a nursery place.
Leach favours extending maternity leave to one year but says £70 a week will
not enable all mothers to stay at home. However, talks with the Treasury may
lead to an agreement that bosses pay towards working mums taking a year off.
Jay Belsky is professor of psychology and director of the Institute for the
Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck University of
London.
He was talking to Sian Griffiths
