Over the last eight months I've acquired a great sympathy for working parents. I say “great” but I mean great in the sense that one means it when viewing the pyramids of Egypt or the skyscrapers of New York. The bulk of my sympathy emanates from this fact: Parents today face tremendous anxiety and pressure as they are forced to choose between raising their own children and keeping the family afloat financially. Obviously, no parent should be put in this situation, but this is exactly where millions of parents find themselves.
Schools as Daycare Facilities
Sadly, some parents see no problem here. To them daycare is a welcome relief from the daily duties of parenthood, and when the child reaches school age, the school becomes the daycare provider. Most parents realize though that personally raising your child and caring for the family financially is both an obligation and a privilege and daycare, regardless of how complacent people have become with it, is essentially the raising of your child by strangers – the institutionalizing of infants and young children at ridiculously tender ages – at the ages where bonding with a parent is more important than it will ever be.
My daughter is eight months old and our nanny spends more time with her than we do – a lot more time! We spend about 4-5 hours with her over each 24 hour period, not counting the eight hours spent sleeping, while the nanny spends 9-10; dare I ask who the real parents are? In terms of time at least, it sure isn't us!
What can my wife and I do about this? Not a thing! Neither one of us can quit our job. Her job pays the rent, health insurance, and her debt, mine pays the bills and groceries, oh, and daycare.
I understand that some things arise simply out of necessity or from pressures and changes in society (in this case the increasing costs of living to the point where two jobs are required to survive), but if there were some criminal mastermind behind this whole predicament I could hardly imagine him being more pleased with it.
If you really think about it, the fact that in many countries, children under the age of five are daily torn from their parents and put in the care of strangers is shocking! (Obviously, I use the word “torn” to imply being forced by financial pressures; no one is putting a gun to anyone’s head here, at least not literally.) Still, visions of WWII Nazis separating families before sending them off in different directions spring to mind... okay, maybe I'm going a little bit overboard; but in both scenarios families are separated forcibly for much longer periods than one would wish or consider reasonable.
Defining Progress in Childcare
There are some things that force you to reconsider the definition of “progress” and this is one of them. A hundred years ago children were raised by their parents; today they are raised by teams of strangers; Progress? Back then parents didn't pay anything except the natural costs that attend the raising of a child; today parents pay high fees for daycare – even on days and during periods of non-care; Progress? Then they didn't have to worry about what sort of psychological or emotional trauma they might be putting their kids through; now we worry; Progress?
Actually my wife and I are somewhat fortunate in that our daycare provider is a family friend, someone we trust. Also, since her daycare empire is still in swaddling clothes, her fees are pretty reasonable. From what I hear $700 a month is typical and she's well below that, which is nice because we really can't afford another mortgage payment. I really think she summed it up best in the second page of her newly composed daycare contract when she said – “your monthly daycare fee will now be $100 higher” – err, sorry, wrong quote, she said – “ultimately the care of the child is the parent's responsibility.” Now that I'll raise a glass to!
But you know what; parents do what they have to do. And I guess little Johnnie or Jill would hardly appreciate more time with mom and dad if he or she didn't have anything to eat or wear. And so, until something drastically changes the structure of how society functions... working parents will do what they must. Tip your hat to them.
Erek Daniels - Erek is an ordained minister in association with Jehovah's Witnesses and a published freelance writer.
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