Public response to a new study that links aggression and varieties of misbehavior to day care has been conspicuous. The study, funded by a branch of the National Institutes of Health, found that children who spend a great deal of time in non-maternal child care are three times more likely to display aggressive behavioral problems than kids reared primarily by their mothers. Researchers maintain that the findings hold up even after factoring in variations in the quality of care, the sex of the child, and the socioeconomic status of the family. The concern about the effects of day care in our country is not a peripheral one. The New York Times reports that ?thirteen million preschoolers, including six million infants and toddlers, are in childcare in this country.? Thirty percent of American kids are in professional day care, 15 percent with family child care providers, 5 percent are cared for in the home by a hired caregiver, and 25 percent are cared for by relatives. Only one in four kids is cared for primarily by his mother.

Cloudy skies

Unsurprisingly, many commentators have been looking for a silver lining in what certainly looks like a dark cloud over our social landscape. Chief among the elements cited by those seeking a bright side in the study is the claim that kids in day care exhibit accelerated language skills and enjoy advantages in social assimilation to the ?real world.? Somehow, this sounds a whole lot like saying that since it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, it is all to the good to send our kids to day care in order to sharpen their fangs. Of course, just how well socialized these kids - who are more prone to getting into fights, cruelty, bullying, meanness, and other aggressive behavior - really are is not entirely clear to me. It reminds me of that obnoxious bumper sticker: ?My kid beat up your honor student.? If I’m not mistaken, it’s concern for precisely this sort of socialization that is inspiring parents across the nation to homeschool their kids. The response from Salon.com columnist Jennifer Foote Sweeney is particularly interesting. Sweeney laments that these dour studies about day care are becoming commonplace. Although she challenges the accuracy of the research, rather than engage or attempt to rebut the study Sweeney explains that she and many mothers are simply uninterested in hearing about studies like this. In fact, rather than endure any more unwelcome and guilt-inspiring news, she recommends that mothers plug their ears and hum a distracting tune until the bearers of the tidings go away or change the subject. (Dare I observe that this is the sort of thing one might expect rambunctious kids in day care to do?) Folks like Sweeney seem to object to studies like this being done at all. Why? Because day care, you see, is simply a fact of contemporary American life. What’s more, it’s an indispensable condition for maintaining the lifestyles we take for granted. Parents everywhere, of every region, race, and creed, are determined to pay others to rear their children. Whatever inclines them to put their kids into someone else’s care (even at the most formative period of those children’s lives) is not outweighed by any concern for the resulting effect on their kids’ character. And why should it? If the average little one out there (we’re talking about kids not yet of kindergarten age) sleeps something on the order of twelve hours a night, and if these kids are under the supervision of someone in a facility at least thirty hours of the work week, parents only have to deal with their kids for less than six hours a day. That’s not an insignificant period of time, to be sure. But once you throw in meals, recreational activities, and travel time hither and thither - to say nothing of time spent watching television and videos - any evidence of the negative effects of day care on a kid’s character becomes relatively easy for any parent to ignore. And six hours is certainly not enough time to compensate for unwelcome influences.

An inescapable social dynamic?

Everyone knows day care is no substitute for a mother’s love. But I have to admit, when I heard about the link between day care and aggression, I was relatively untroubled. As someone who grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan, one of the first things that came to my mind was Michael Irvin, the former wide receiver (who, not withstanding his own misbehavior, deserves to be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, by the way). No, Irvin wasn’t an especially violent player, and to the best of my knowledge he was not reared in day care. Irvin wasn’t the fastest, tallest, or strongest receiver to play the game, but he was renowned (even infamous) for his determination and hunger for success. It was often suggested that he managed to make the unlikely catch, despite the best efforts of opposing cornerbacks, because he was simply willing to fight harder for the ball than they were. His aggressiveness and physicality revolutionized the position he played. He came to mind when I heard about the day care study because his resolve was frequently tied to his being the youngest of some eleven children and his having learned to scrap for that extra mouthful of food. By all accounts, having to fight tooth and nail for his supper contributed to Irvin’s remarkable success. It makes sense to me. After all, most Americans prefer to have pretty small families these days. One or two children rarely have to compete for attention or snacks -- there is almost always more than enough of whatever is being sought to go around. My suspicion was that the heightened level of aggression in day cared-for children was largely a function of selfish children being forced to share and make concessions. If the tall tales about the legendary Cowboys wideout are to be believed, it seems only logical that adding more children to the mix would encourage a certain natural competitiveness. Traditionally, such competitiveness would be mitigated - or at least refereed - by the oversight of a firm and loving parent, but that’s something not available in any day care facility I’ve ever heard of. But then it occurred to me that families with multiple children differ from day care centers in respects other than the presence of a conflict-resolving parent. For one thing, the ages, abilities, and demands of children are distributed pretty broadly in a family. What family, however large, finds itself with up to a dozen children of roughly the same age? As Jennifer Roback Morse observes in her wonderful new book Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-faire Family Doesn’t Work, despite the modern family’s preference for fewer children - presumably in order to shower more love and attention on those we have - there is a competing inclination to institutionalize those kids in group care settings. Sure, some day care centers make much of their relatively low adult to child ratios, but none of them will be able to rival the ratio the child would have at home. The schizophrenia is as evident as it is tragic.

Unavoidable costs

Now, not all families enlist the services of day care for the same reasons. Any responsible discussion of the impulse to employ day care services must clearly distinguish between single- and two-parent families. It goes without saying that extra-parental supervision of children is at times a regrettable necessity for the single-parent family. Still, I’ll go ahead and say it, if only to forestall a slew of heated objections: Parents who are single for reasons of divorce or the death of a spouse often have no recourse but to institutionalize the care of their young children. When there are alternatives, they are often no less problematic, and sometimes more so. But just because something is sometimes unavoidable should not prevent us from confronting its significant costs or, even worse, cause us to pretend they don’t exist. Single parenthood is truly an unfortunate phenomenon with deeply disturbing effects on children. Morse observes that not only do children who don’t live with two parents forfeit many crucial but intangible benefits, they also as a rule suffer in quite measurable ways: generally fewer years of education; a greater likelihood of dropping out of school; generally lower monetary earnings as adults and a greater likelihood of poverty; a greater likelihood of bearing children out of wedlock; a higher divorce rate; and a much greater propensity for delinquency and substance abuse than children from intact homes. There are a number of reasons for these effects, but one undeniable conclusion is that parenthood is too much of a job for just one person. Even if it weren’t, fathers and mothers bring different and invaluable contributions to the table, without which children suffer.

Dependencies and dependencies

It must be observed at this point that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the single-parent home is a voluntary arrangement: at least one parent decides to end the marriage, or the mother opts to bear children without the benefit of wedlock in the first place. Morse notes a tragic irony in all of this. Notwithstanding exceptional circumstances, the single-parent household is an expression of ?modern arrangements that claim to liberate women from dependency? and enable them to have it all. Some women take their independence from men to remarkable lengths. The Rosie O’Donnells, Camryn Mannheims, and Calista Flockharts of the world celebrate the fact that not only are husbands optional to parenthood, men are themselves optional. Oh sure, men are still necessary, but only in the sense that they have to be lured into the back room of some clinic somewhere to offer gestures of affection for a cup they’ve never met before. In this way, mankind’s mastery of nature allows men to remain in every way anonymous to prospective mothers, both before and after babies are brought into the world. Social institutions like day care solidify the single mother’s independence from men. Yet despite the ability of women to have children without any contact with fathers, the single mother is no less dependent. Her dependence is merely transferred from the father to an institution. All of this serves not as an indictment of day care, per se, but rather a highlight on the importance of addressing the problem of single parenthood that results in the need for day care. Rather than simply resign ourselves to cold hard reality, we must commit ourselves to bring warm and soft solace. Not only should it be done, it can be done. In Oklahoma, Governor Frank Keating has identified divorce as one of the ills plaguing his state and has set out to do something about it. Oklahoma is devoting millions of dollars to the worthy goal of cutting the divorce rate by a third by 2010. Maggie Gallagher’s observations about the benefits of covenant marriage laws to discourage divorce are also welcome in this regard. Not only are state efforts to bolster and support the institution of marriage fitting and welcome, our churches must take stock of this problem and act on it. Where single parenthood exists or is unavoidable - and where isn’t it?- we must provide alternatives to institutional care. Yes, we have to be sure to treat the malady itself, but we must also seek to alleviate the symptoms. Fractured families and communities make the challenge that much greater, but rather than simply look down our noses at parents who work, churches must where possible play a role in supplying an alternative structure of care for children. These are opportunities to extend Christian benevolence that we don’t want to pass up.

A question of priorities

There’s no question that single parenthood can be a nightmare for children. But what’s really the harm shown by the latest day care study, especially if those kids return home to two parents? Let’s face it. A lot of kids are unruly, and most of them settle down eventually. If a significant but not overwhelming number of children act up a little more than they might have otherwise, well, we can live with that as a society, right? I blanch just writing those words. Talking about someone else’s kids is bad enough; I can’t even imagine saying such things about my own. The single parent might not have a choice, but why would any parent who can avoid it be willing to see a study like this one about his kids? Am I overwrought? Maybe. But as I see it, there are only a few things parents can really do anything about in their children’s lives, and putting them in day care abridges our responsibility for perhaps the most important one. Kids only need so much stuff. Shelter. Food. Love. Affection. And while parents can stimulate their kids’ development, they can’t make them any brighter. Where parents have the most influence, and I would suggest the greatest responsibility,is in the shaping of their children’s character. The burden to teach them right from wrong is most essentially the province of parental authority. No parent can make his child good, but through example and instruction parents can cultivate virtue in them. We teach our children to restrain themselves, to treat people fairly, to do the right thing in the face of certain obstacles, and to make good decisions. In short, we civilize them. The way our children behave reflects the kinds of people they are. We teach to act well because we want to help them to be good people. And that’s what this day care study gets to the heart of: the character of our children. The most significant concern raised by this study and others like it is the moral well-being of the children studied - and by extension the culture they will help to shape.

The second-income mother

I’ve already suggested that institutional care is a regrettable necessity for many single parents, and we must work both to reduce the incidence of single-parenthood in our society and to provide better care options for those single parents. But of much greater concern is the phenomenon of parents who really don’t need to consign their young children to institutional care, but who do so anyway. Far and away, the most common rationale for enlisting professional day-care services is to allow women with children to work outside the home. I might be willing to consider the idea that for some families the mother really ?must work,? but I am confident that this is a rare circumstance. What most people mean when they say this is that they must work ?to maintain a certain standard of living? - both for themselves and for their children. Authors like Danielle Crittenden and Brian C. Robertson have shown that only a small portion of the workforce earns significantly more with a second income than they pay out on taxes and day care to make it economically worthwhile for both parents to work outside the home. So what compels them to do so? Whatever it is, it’s a powerful influence. Frankly, I don’t think too many women are consciously putting the responsibility for the enduring character of their children’s souls on a sliding scale with material goods and giving preference to some threshold of prosperity.

Practical quandaries

In truth, women are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. It’s a problem with which I, no less than most of us, have personal experience. My wife is a bright and talented woman. She has a master’s degree and a heart for the work of her field. She’s remarkably marketable; her earnings potential rivals if not exceeds that of her husband. She also has three small children - and it’s worth noting that their father works for a non-profit, donor-financed Christian ministry in one of the highest cost-of-living areas of the country. But she has chosen to resist the appeal of the market. She’s obviously not alone. We have many bright and talented married female friends, all of whom must confront this quandary. We’re all familiar with the costs that single-income families incur. Both parents make considerable sacrifices. Money is tight. Very tight. Savings are meager and, well, let’s just say most of us are not driving new SUVs. Sometimes significant career opportunities have to be passed up. Advanced degrees are prolonged, deferred, and often abandoned in order to keep a home together and keep bringing in a paycheck. But it’s certainly manageable. The activities that fill these families’ days are not the sorts of things that get put onto a curriculum vitae. And the leisure activities with which parents occupy themselves are not always those they enjoy the most. It’s not that life revolves around the children, at least not in every case, but integrating those young, almost helpless, impressionable, and needy little human beings into a home means making sacrifices. You might think that marriage would prepare us to make these kinds of sacrifices, and it should. But as the divorce rate shows, we aren’t very good at dying to ourselves for anyone. Clear awareness of the costs of providing maternal care for children does not mean that we’re not familiar with the benefits enjoyed by such families - it’s just that the benefits are pretty easily forgotten. It’s not hard to get used to the way things ?ought? to be. The shame is that we tend only to appreciate them when they’re absent.

Impractical quandaries

Even with all this, the biggest challenge to women staying at home to rear their children is not the sacrifices they make in affluence. No, the most significant obstacle they confront is what Jennifer Roback Morse calls an ?ideological mix of left-wing self-esteem feminism and right-wing income-maximizing capitalism.? It is ?the idea that the work that women do in the market is more valuable than the work they do in the home.? It’s a powerful message, virtually unchallenged in the culture by left or right. And it’s not just the militant lesbian feminists out there promoting it. In fact, it’s part of what inspired their militancy. Men have long poured themselves into their vocations and neglected their families. They justified it by telling themselves, and their wives, that the work they do at the office far outweighs what they might contribute at home. I think the message hit home. In spades. Women are trained at every turn to value themselves not according to what is unique to them, namely their capacity to bear and rear children, but in light of how much influence they have in the marketplace. G. K. Chesterton famously observed that the problem with the modern view of sex was not that it misunderstood sex; it’s that it failed to appreciate marriage. I would suggest that the problem with our culture’s view of the career-driven woman in the marketplace is not so much that it misunderstands women and their talents and abilities - it’s that it fails to appreciate the family. No one should deny that women’s gifts and talents are in every way the equal of men’s. But in order to give them their fullest expression,we persuade ourselves that we have to rethink our view of and responsibility for the family. We’re not really certain that we’re called to rear our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but we know for darn sure that we’re called to exercise our talents where they’ll be appreciated.

And who can blame anyone for that?

Sure, my wife and the relatively small segment of the population like her know what they’re doing is valuable. But how many women who make the necessary sacrifices to stay home with their children receive support and approval from those around them? How often do they endure polite smirks when they answer the question of what they do for a living? With our fractured and fragmented communities and distant families, how many of them even enjoy regular adult conversation that isn’t devoted to concerns for potty-training techniques and household management strategies? The culture tells mothers that their worth as human beings depends upon their getting out of the home, and only too often even those of us who support their decision to stay home tell them the culture is right.

Hard cases make bad law

The parallels to the practice of abortion are alarming. We tell mothers not to have their unborn children killed, but only too often we offer few manageable solutions for their problems. Mothers with children outside the womb require no less a network of support. Yet where do we direct our energies? Sometimes we get it right. Governor Keating and those like him are making an important contribution to the culture. And programs like MOPS (Mothers of Preschool Students) are wonderful tools that help to compensate for some of the effects of our fragmented communities. Yet, notwithstanding the legitimate questions of justice at issue in the current tax code, I find it ironic that the highest profile political campaign in ?support of the family? is one to repeal the marriage penalty, thereby creating an even greater financial incentive for mothers to leave the home and go to work. Let’s be clear. Merely keeping mom at home with the kids is not the answer to raising a generation of good and healthy children. But it’s an important start. It’s like families having dinner together every night. Studies show that children in families that eat dinner together every night, or most nights, get into a lot less trouble than those who don’t. But the act of eating dinner together doesn’t keep kids out of trouble. It is simply a sign of a healthy family. I’m entirely willing to believe - in fact I’m convinced - that there are some kids out there who would be better off in day care. But those hard cases should not inspire rules that are themselves contrary to a healthy norm. The fact that there are moms out there who aren’t doing what is best for their children, and may even be doing harm to their kids, doesn’t tell us anything about day care - it tells us that certain moms fail to appreciate the importance of what they are doing or should be doing. Mind you, it’s not as if things are any better in the culture where it concerns fathers. Only now are we beginning to appreciate the effects of men who have sacrificed their families on the altar of work, self-esteem, or self-indulgence. But these are not the kinds of mistakes our children need to see compounded by their mothers doing likewise. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think this study need inspire fear that we are preparing a violent horde to be loosed on society. Who knows, we may even see a greater incidence in the Michael Irvins of the world - not an unwelcome thought so long as they play for the Cowboys. But it should certainly serve to reawaken perhaps a slumbering esteem for the family and encourage us to adjust our priorities accordingly.

Reprinted with permission. http://www.breakpoint.org/