DANGERS OF DAY CARE

DANGERS OF DAY CARE

Because the daycare center serves as an adjunct to female employment, American feminists have sought--with astonishing success--to suppress any criticism of its effects on children or family life. Still, the occasional study does slip through. The latest to shed unwelcome light on the darker side of daycare comes from two child psychologists at Haifa University in Israel. The Haifa scholars' negative news about daycare appears in a recent issue of Child Development as part of their report on a study of mother-child attachment among 98 Israeli mothers and their infants. After identifying the bond between each mother-child pair as "secure" or "avoidant" or "anxious/ambivalent," the researchers analyze background variables to see what social or family circumstances predict the problematic "avoidant" or "anxious/ambivalent" bonds. Statistical tests reveal "longer hours of mothers at work and placement in a group day-care setting were associated with higher rates of the insecure ambivalent pattern" (p < 0.001 for both variables). Further analysis established that each of these variables makes "a unique contribution to the development of an ambivalent attachment pattern." In other words, regardless of what kind of surrogate childcare is provided, high levels of maternal employment foster ambivalent mother-child bonding. Likewise, regardless of how many hours the mother works, if she places her child in group daycare, an ambivalent mother-child bond is more likely to develop. "Thus," write the Israeli scholars, "besides longer hours of maternal unavailability due to work, the group-care experience in itself proved negative for these infants regarding attachment security."

Perhaps to mollify or deflect criticism from feminist colleagues, the authors of the new study suggest that their daycare findings may reflect the "lower quality of group day-care centers in Israel." They do dare to cite previous research, however, showing that infants in group day-care centers receive "less responsive, sensitive, and affectionate" care than do infants at home or in some other type of individualized care.

In the big picture, the researchers see the prospect of maternal employment and daycare placement coming together in an unhealthy dynamic: "mother's absence due to long work hours; her anxiety and tension, which interfere with her capacity for sensitive responding; or the experience of group day care, may all contribute to the children's experience of inconsistent maternal availability."

(Source: Anat Scher and Ofra Mayseless, "Mothers of Anxious/Ambivalent Infants: Maternal Characteristics and Child-Care Context," Child Development 71[2000]: 1629-1639.)