Don’t worry, they’re taking good care of your children

acotrel says:

05:59am | 20/01/12

If you don’t want to spend quality time with your kids, why did you have them?  Was it to prove your sexuality or did you have a genuine desire to bring a few good citizens into the world ?  I wonder how much parents these days go out of their way to actually teach their kids anything - like playing a musical instrument, dancing, chess, card games, board games like scrabble ?  Perhaps parents are just all to busy gathering THINGS ? Even a hit up with the kids with tennis racquets in the backyard teaches a bit of coordination. Why leave the experience of participating in their most formative years to a carer who probably doesn’t want to know the kids anyway?

Cry in my Gin says:

06:27am | 20/01/12

@acotrel
The things most parents give up their time for these days are the basics. Shelter, power, water, gas, food, clothing and transport. None of this is getting any cheaper. None of it can be done without either. Add to this the cost of actually educating a child and the time spent earning money to pay for these things is soon eroded away. My thoughts on the matter were similar to yours a few years back. Now I have kids.
You do not have children, do you?

marley says:

07:11am | 20/01/12

@acotrel - I’ve read your comments about how, while your kids were growing up, you worked all day and took courses at night. You relied on someone (presumably your wife) to look after your kids while you did other things most of the week.  So you’re hardly in a position to criticize people who are doing today what you did 40 years ago..

Greg says:

07:35am | 20/01/12

Alcotrel, what century are you living in? No one has backyards big enough for tennis anymore.

acotrel says:

07:49am | 20/01/12

@marley
My wife was at home with my first two sons for five years whille I worked ,studied and kept the family going.  We weren’t flash, we had the cheapest house in the best street, and certainly no spare cash for habits or a social life..  My daughter always went to a creche as a baby, and later to the school where my wife worked.  There were four nights, and weekends each week available.  Some of my time was taken up with assignments, and even then the kids were around my feet.  My wife and I did everything we could for our children, and we actually lived our lives around them in an almost rational relationship.
‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy !’

acotrel says:

07:59am | 20/01/12

@Gregg
Get yourself a good paying job in a fair sized country town where there is a university !  But keep an eye on your kids.  In a town like Albury the other kids are bored.

marley says:

08:08am | 20/01/12

@acotrel - so exactly why are you criticising today’s parents for doing exactly what you did?

Bertrand says:

08:14am | 20/01/12

@acotrel - were those questions specifically directed at me? I’m not sure?

My wife and I made the decision to stay at home with our kids until they are school age (which none of them are yet). We do this by both working part time and staying at home part time.

For us the decision was easy for the very reasons you listed. I’m positive my 3 year old son is better off having his daddy take him out to run around the botanic gardens, or his mummy take him to the zoo, than to spend every day within the walls of a day care centre.

However, I disagree with your lack of understanding of parents who put their kids in care. My wife and I are lucky, in that our qualifications have allowed both of us to obtain jobs where our part-time work still gives us a household income above the national average.

If we didn’t have this luxury, there is a good chance our kids would be in child care. It is an unfortunate fact of life in modern day Australia that many families need two incomes just to scrape by. Should these people forgo the joy of having children because of some ideological opposition to day care?

I do agree though with your perplexity at couples who both pull in the dollars, but sent their kids off to day care for 50 hours a week to help finance the second Pajero and the house extension for the 3rd bathroom. The priorities of those people do seem a bit out of whack.

acotrel says:

09:44am | 20/01/12

@Bertrand
I never had a brand new car before I was 65 years old.  I never smoked or drank or gambled while I was with my kids.  We spent money on the family home to make it big enough, and comfortable, but to a tight budget. I still found enough spare cash to race motorcycles a few times.  The house prices are the biggest killer these days, but we don’t all have to live in capitol cities.  I suggest that many people don’t look at the alternatives.  If you want to live in the bush, you need a different mindset.  There is always a need for health professionals in country towns,  Teachers are needed, so even a Certificate in Training and Assessment can help you find work.  Skills like project management are rare but sorely needed.  Science based learning in soil chemistry, viticulture, and vetenerary are also needed.  Building trades also are a good go.
It is a matter of thinking where you want t o go, and orienting your education to give maximum opportunity.
If I was starting again, I’d take a different approach, and I’d do a bit more planning for my future.  There is no need to be locked into the rat race.

I, Claudia says:

10:39am | 20/01/12

My mother had me reading and writing (albeit clumsily) by the time I was eighteen-months-old, playing the piano at two years and enrolled in gymnastics classes by four. I definitely had a “head-start” when I was formally admitted into the education system: I was promoted a grade twice.

However, there rings a certain truth to your words, Bertrand - I’m not sure that that “head-start” has been neccessarily beneficial to my development as an adult. Don’t get me wrong - I love my mum and I’ll never be able to repay her for the enormous sacrifices she made for me - but I imagine that, left to my own devices in childhood, I probably would’ve evolved emotionally in much the same way.

acotrel says:

03:21pm | 20/01/12

@Bertrand
I’d say one thing about putting kids in day care.  My daughter was the one who was always in a creche as a pre-schooler.  She is the one most at ease in social situations, and the one who has probably done the most good things in her life.  She is ten years youger than the next kid up, and can handle her brothers foibles with ease .  The older kids bring the younger ones along.  But we always played the games, and everyone was treated equally, no allowances made for age, fatigue, illess, anything.. They still do that between themselves as adults.

St. Michael says:

05:03pm | 20/01/12

@ acotrel: the usefulness of day care is a matter of degree and individual children.

Steve Biddulph did some informal research work on the subject and found there was a lot of disagreement among child psychologists and early learning experts as to whether socialisation of children before a certain age or more than a certain period of time per week is of any benefit at all.

In particular, there are questions about whether day care has any “socialisation” benefit prior to the age of 3 since children don’t really play socially prior to that age - it’s a developmental step they haven’t taken, so you are doing no favours to them.

And he also found a decent number of primary school teachers who could pick out (with surprising accuracy) kids who’d been dumped in child care for full weeks from an early age as the withdrawn, apathetic ones already demonstrating self-esteem issues: school, to them, was merely another place to be dropped off and left away from their parents.  The pattern had been set.  But to be fair we’re probably talking about extremes there.

Insofar as personal anecdotes are relevant: we did try it with my eldest daughter at around 3 for a few weeks.  She was only going 1 day per week (so cue all the “she didn’t have enough time in the place per week to get used to it”) but what tipped me into pulling her out of day care and making other arrangements was the look of confused betrayal on a little girl’s face in the rear view mirror for the half hour trip home from the centre every time we went.

I had never seen that look on my child’s face before, and I haven’t seen it since.  It was the most heartbreaking thing I could imagine.  I would walk on hot ashes before I knowingly put my kid in a position where I could see that look again.  Screw day care.  Family’s better.

Smile For God's Sake says:

07:16pm | 20/01/12

@I, Claudia,

I agree wholeheartedly. Able to read and do basic awithmatic 12 months. Bronze Medal in lifesaving at 22 months. C in spelling but so what? Kindy at 4, and teachers pet at 4 and a half. Able to play a musical instrumernt (guitar) at 5. Now, at 6, I spend my mornings reading Punch and my evening responding to letters/posts that interest me.

Sorry, have to go. Mummy has just said I have to go and have a bath.

Bertrand says:

08:28pm | 20/01/12

@ acotrel and St. Michael (re-entering this discussion quite late, I know, but if it makes any difference I found motivation in this topic to drag my butt out of the house and take my kids to a local state forest for a picnic).

The socialisation aspect of day care is indeed important, I’ve read a fair bit of Steve Biddulph’s work and, as St. Michael has said, he does tend towards advocating stay-at-home care for young children as the better model, despite the extra socialisation that occurs at day care. Of course, that’s not to say I chose stay at home care as the model for our kids based on Steve Biddulph - I’ve read quite a few parenting books and they are fairly conflicting in their advice. My wife and I have chosen what feels best for our family.

My personal belief is that socialisation is necesszary for children above a certain age, but it doesn’t have to occur through child care. Heck, we have 3 kids under 5 in our house. They are definitely learning about things like sharing and conflict resolution. But they also get socialisation in other ways. Play dates with friends work wonders (as do play dates with other children they like less, but, you know what kids, your dad and I get on like a house on fire, so you need to learn to at least tolerate each other). We also make sure that they have time at other people’s houses when we aren’t there. Learning to cope without mum and dad around is important.

I’m not sure if I’m really making a point here, just saying what happens in our house. It works for us, and, although I’m clearly biased, it does seem to work for our kids too. So far there isn’t too much about them I would change.

St. Michael says:

12:04am | 21/01/12

“Now, at 6, I spend my mornings reading Punch and my evening responding to letters/posts that interest me.”

You really need to post under your own name, John.

Lorraine says:

03:44pm | 23/01/12

Exactly, Bertrand. The problem is that parents want it all.
They want the child but they do not want to spend time with it.  So they park it with “strangers” who are at the pre-school to earn a living rather than nurture other people’s children.
By the time these little children reach 4.5 years of age, they are already institutionalised and then they are subject to a standardised system that does not educate but prepares them for work.
Perhaps in the future they will have a very strong case against their government and their parents for “stealing their childhood”

Anna C says:

08:00am | 20/01/12

I agree with Rachel. Children are only little for a few years and I think it is a sacrifice worth making. Those years pass very quickly and frankly you ‘ve got the rest of your life to work and earn a higher income.

Mr Pod says:

10:11am | 20/01/12

My wife and I decided to share the home parent role, she did the first 6 years and I did the 4 years after.  It killed off my career and had to deal with complete social isolation, but I still regard it as the best job I ever had.  The kids received my utmost attention and I certainly got to understand how much early exposure to exploring the world and how it works (not muddy government education dept learning directives) is. I also benefited and learned how to have childish fun again and gained a wider perspective on life than my previous narrow work-a-day life gave.

Cry in my Gin says:

08:50am | 20/01/12

Your self righteous tone was more the point of my comment. . It is the 21st century. Totally different set of circumstances to the baby boom times of which you write. In most cases both parents have to work full time just to make mortgage payments on the most modest of housing.
One wage just will not cut it any more. The times of which you speak are all history. Along with free education and back yards big enough to hit tennis balls around in. Of course we can ALL get high paying jobs in country towns….yeah right.

acotrel says:

09:59am | 20/01/12

@Cry
It doesn’t need to be ‘high paying’ in a country town, as long as it’s regular and fairly secure.  And that depends on the demand for your skills.  Preferable if both of you can work one full time, the other at least part time.  And that is the rub - most of us are trained for a completely different environment.
We just have to face it, the days of working in manufacturing, and support industries are over.  There is a lot of competition in cities for clerical etc. jobs, and those skills don’t get you far in the bush.  If your education locks you into living in the city, that is a bad thing, you can find yourself stuck in an invidious position. If I was in that situation, I’d work to get out of it by changing my education to suit the bush.  Then I’d find a job, and rent in the country, and let my city dwelling at least until I was securely set up in the bush.

I, Claudia says:

10:42am | 20/01/12

Cry - I disagree. I’m twenty-one, and my mother gave me a very similar upbringing to acotrel’s. It is still possible to commit to these ideals.

Jem says:

11:50am | 20/01/12

@acotrel

“I brought up three kids while working full time, attending night classes three times per week, also working a bit of overtime on occasion. I used to drive 2.5 hours per day. “

No you didn’t bring up your kids, your wife brought them up and you played games with them when you had the time. 

Another comment you’v emade on this post

“If you don’t want to spend quality time with your kids, why did you have them? “

Why did you have kids if you weren’t going to be around much?  Working full time, overtime and studying at night - why overcommit your time and leave so little for your children?

Personally I scaled back my working hours once I had children, no more overtime, no more working on weekends.  I’ve put a hold on trying to ‘climb the corporate ladder’ because while I can’t avoid the need to work fulltime to pay the mortgage, I can make sure my evenings and weekends are free to give my kids my attention.  I also have a position with flexibility to attend the ocassional parent help day and school assembly.  It means we dont’ have as much money as we might, but the trade off is worth it.

You’re very judgemental of others who aren’t raising their kids the way you think is the “right” way.  Yet you left your kids to your wife to raise while you were busy working and studying.  It’s pretty much the same thing in my view, although I’m sure you’ll disagree.  An absent father who shows up, plays a few games and then goes off to work again.  That’s not raising a child. 

See how easy it is to take someone else’s life, pass a few judgements and tell them they are a bad parent?

James1 says:

12:44pm | 20/01/12

My daughter was born in 2003, and my wife stayed at home for the first five years.  We didn’t want for anything.  It is totally possible - if you structure your life according to your income, rather than setting a minimum standard which is in fact quite high and attempting to tailor your income to that.  If mortgage payments really are that onerous, it is always possible to rent for considerably less.  The money you save can actually be more productive if you invest it than if you sink it into interest payments.

Paul says:

02:51pm | 20/01/12

what is this… donimoes.. of which you speak? =P

acotrel says:

03:10pm | 20/01/12

@Jem
Four hours per night, three times a week, and twenty four hours on weekends.  I suggest that’s a fairly substantial contribution, when you consider I was driving across Melbourne every day, working full time, and studying part time. My life certainly wasn’t my own. My kids didn’t grow up to be incompetents. In fact my daughter has an honours degree in law.

marley says:

09:35am | 21/01/12

@acotrel - you’re missing the point entirely.  Parents who put their kids into day care so they can pay for the roof over the house and the food on the table aren’t doing anything different than you did, nor are they spending less time with their kids than you did. 

So, if you want to ask modern parents why they had kids if the didn’t want to spend time with them, then you have to ask yourself exactly the same question.

acotrel says:

08:12am | 20/01/12

@Jane2
What you’ve said makes me very sad. I found my kids very stimulating, they made it all worthwhile, I’m proud of what they have become. And I really like the way they still relate to each other. Some people miss out on so much !  You have to ask the question ‘what are we here for ?’ I suggest it is to leave the world a better place !

Elizabeth1 says:

10:09am | 20/01/12

In my experience the kids failing at your list don’t have either parent working and don’t attend child care or preschool.  Two different population groups.

E says:

03:21pm | 20/01/12

It’s a combination of disposable nappies and parents avoiding. Toilet training is hard and often messy and they just keep making nappies for bigger and bigger kids so it’s possible to put off training longer. My nephew was barely toilet trained in time for school at 4, but then he could hardly talk either. Could turn on the tv and boot up the x box and play all the games he wants, but talk and go to the toilet way too hard. Go figure

acotrel says:

10:04am | 20/01/12

@subotic
I really like that !  Seems to me it might be possible to do a trade - they look after your kids while they are young, and you look after the olds when they are on their last legs.

Markus says:

10:28am | 20/01/12

Something like 40% of families in this country now receive as much or more government benefits than they pay in tax each year, and most of this would be attributed to Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate. It is an unsustainable bubble that has to be popped at sometime. I won’t hold my breath for a government that has the cojones to do it, though.

It is always amusing (in a really depressing way) hearing people whinge “childcare is so expensive, why do I even bother working at all?”
If you are one of the above 40% of families whose employment is currently of zero net benefit to this country, then I would agree entirely.

St. Michael says:

01:10pm | 20/01/12

@ Emma:

“If Australia seriously wants more women in the workforce, we have to face up to the reality that most low income families can’t afford to pay for centre-based child care.”
...
“Yes, we should ensure that children have a proper pre-school year, even if they’re in childcare because public pre-schools don’t fit in with the working hours of parents, but we should also pay childcare workers a decent wage for the amazing work that so many of them do.”

Can you see the problem with these two sections of your post?

If the majority of low or even middle income parents can’t afford to pay for child care, where does the income stream arise from to pay child care workers higher wages?

It’s very easy to say “government-funded pre-school” without thinking about exactly how massive a bill that entails for all Australians paying income tax, whether they have children or not.  And before you go for the obvious: easing women back into the workforce for a couple of days per week will not provide sufficient income tax revenue to pay for it.

That means the balance either will have to come from raised income tax across the board, or from the government loaning more money to pay for it.  The money has to come from somewhere.

And that’s just on present child care costs.  If you raise child care workers’ wages, you raise the cost of child care even further.

Mommy Dearest says:

01:07pm | 20/01/12

This isn’t daycare, which is optional, but Kindy - which nearly isn’t. Our school is starting a kindy this year and they have made it known that kids who attend the kindy will get first pick for prep the following year, which leads on to Grade 1 the year after…

Ear to the Ground says:

02:13pm | 20/01/12

@Outraged. Great article, not such a great comment.

Women - and men for that matter - “bother” having children because they want to be parents.

For some, being a parent can mean spending every minute of every day with your children.  For others, it might mean one or both parents working some of the time - full time, part time, from home, fly-in/fly-out, shift work, whatever.  This will often mean having the kids cared for by others some of the time.  It might be grandparents, other relatives, home-based care, centre-based care, preschool, kindy, play-dates with friends, or any mixture of these.  All of it normal, and all of it having been part of child-raising for all of modern history.  It doesn’t mean that these parents aren’t raising their children.

I won’t touch on the financial realities faced by many families these days, with most requiring two incomes to support a modest lifestyle.  Others have covered that more than adequately.
 
The only thing “appaling” here is an anonymous commenter passing judgment on all parents who’ve made a choice to use some from of care in raising their children.

Pull your head in.