Lets not forget that childcare in its current forms (nursery, playschool) is a fairly recent development for humans.
In the past, mothers would tend to the children and the home, while dads went out to work. This has been the case since our hunter gatherer past and probably way before.
Now we have broken that evolutionary trend; where both parents must work in order to provide… what happens to the kids?
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Maybe they go weird when they reach 50 and we just don’t know yet. Or they’re absolutely fine. Kids are very adaptable.
In some places in the countryside it was commonplace to have the kids together during the day with a few women looking after them while the rest of the mothers worked the fields. Or have the kids around while the women worked. When you make a living farming you can’t afford to not work otherwise you miss out on money and food. What you described was possible in cities but definitely not in the countryside and not for every social class.
There are studies on this that will give you a proper answer.
Kids in nursery develop social skills earlier. Learning how to interact with other children, play, share etc. Learning how to interact with lots of different adults who are not their primary caregiver (or family).
Anecdotally, what I’ve observed agrees with the studies. I have young kids. Lots of our friends do too. Some in nursery some kept with stay at home care.
Of course all kids are different, and personalities differ, as does the effort level of the parent, how much they do with them to get them out into the world. But broadly, I do see a difference in nursery kids vs stay at home parent kids.
Also as a side note, you mentioned hunter gather era – there’s a belief that childcare was shared between the tribe collectively at times, with everyone pitching in. Kind of like a modern day creche/nursery.
*edit – spelling
> In the past, mothers would tend to the children and the home, while dads went out to work. This has been the case since our hunter gatherer past and probably way before.
This is really an oversimplification, and doesn’t describe the entirety of history in any way at all. There have been all sorts of different societal views on raising kids and what happens to them during the day.
Nursing and nurseries have been common for hundreds of years, at least in some parts of social class – even wet nursing is an ancient practice
Didn’t women tend to do gathering ?
Wouldn’t the older generation have watched the kids whilst the more abled younger adults hunt/gather. When a father died the mother and kids still existed, I think they just worked as a community more than we do now.
I don’t think that much has changed really except we have vehicles for travelling more, bigger houses etc so we don’t live in small tight knit communities, we have businesses which are more focused on individual wealth rather than the well being of everyone.
Basically the main change is we became more selfish instead of the wellbeing of the whole community.
The potential risk is for the child to develop an attachment disorder. At a very young age children form an attachment to their primary caregiver. This attachment gradually wains over time. Forced separation from the care giver for extended periods can be traumatic for the child.
That’s not to state that this will definitely happen, but it is a risk, and separation from the primary caregiver is at the root of most childhood trauma with severe negative consequences in later life.
As with anything, don’t take the word of someone on the internet about these sort of decisions, though. It’s a good place to start, but not such a good place to stop.
My son spent 90% of the working week at nursery from the age of 1. I personally think it gave him a high head start in his early development. I wouldn’t change it if I’d had to do it over again
Attatchment and bonding with primary care giver is the most important thing at that age. Also, those days are so precious and so fleeting, I would have hated having to part from my baby at that age.
This comment is not intended to be judgemental, its more that I am heartbroken for parents and children who are in this situation out of necessity.
When the kid gets very upset or hurt and calls out for their carer, rather than you, the parent. Then it will suddenly dawn on you that you yourself should be raising your child.
I also feel a lot of parents who sadly are forced to put their babies into fulltime care at a very young age, kid themselves that its “best for them”.
We all know children dont have the mental capacity to share until 3 years old – this is the words of Gabor Maté.
All play done before this age is self play, and generally will only be done peacefully if in the presence and close proximity to its primary care giver.
Im not sure if its the same in all nurseries, but when my sisters maternity leave ran out and she had to go back to work, she slowly transitioned my niece into nursery for a few weeks before going back.
It started with a meet and greet with all the girls (with my sister there), then left niece there for an hour once she was comfortable. The following week, she just did one afternoon, the next week, 2 afternoons, then the last week 1 full day and 1 afternoon.
Then when she had to go full time, she was absolutely fine. She has got her favourite girls there who she absolutely loves, she enjoys playing with the other children, and they do so many fun and educational activities, she is never bored. They even teach them basic sign language.
It was the exact same with my older niece, and you could see the difference between the 2 types of children when she started her first day of real school. My niece was super excited on her first day, and ran into the classroom to meet her new friends (and a lot of current friends from nursery) and had absolutely no issues. The kids who had been home with their mother/father for their entire lives were all petrified and crying their eyes out.
I do think that even stay at home parents should use daycare at least once or twice a week, its great for the little ones.