The Choice

“The question is not whether hired day care should exist (it always will), or whether it should be made as good as possible (of course it should). The question is whether everyday middle-class Americans should produce children without the intention of nurturing them. There is a difference between a compromise made in reaction to some crisis of fate, and an arrangement made simply because one wants to maximize one’s own position while ignoring serious costs to others.” Society would have us believe that in order to provide for our children, both parents should work full time to make as much as possible to insure that our children are well taken care of and have a future that is better than ours. Unfortunately the one thing most children want and need, most desperately, is the one thing that we as parents fail to give them, our time.

The work force is full of women who have children. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that “70% of women with children under the age of 18 are in the labor force.” If this is true, than it stands to reason that these children spend the majority of their time in some type of childcare outside the home. According to Child Care Statistics, “… approximately 12 million children are being nurtured and cared for outside of the home by individuals other than their parents, for over thirty-six hours a week…”. One must question why our society has come to accept the practice of letting someone other than the parents raise our children. Sure many people believe that structure, the interaction with kids of the same age and providing a learning atmosphere is what is best for children. So why can’t this be accomplished at home? I believe it can and should be.

I think of my own children and how they spend the majority of their day away from us and in a daycare so we can work and provide a good future for them. As I think of their day, I wonder what kind of future we are actually providing. Monday through Friday, we use a well-established Christian childcare facility close to our home. The staff is great and they do a fantastic job with the kids. However, I struggle with something that I think most parents that use childcare struggle with; but are unsure how to handle or approach, and that is the amount of time we actually get to spend with them.

My kids are in childcare for approximately 10 hours a day. On an average, after picking them up, we are able to spend an hour and a half with the boys before they go to bed at 8:30 p.m. An hour and a half to instill responsibility, teach love and respect, and build that trust relationship so they can feel like they can talk to us about anything. One and a half hours each night to ask them about their day; help them with homework, listen to them as they talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a kid. I ask myself, how am I suppose to raise my children the way I believe they should be raised when I see them for such a limited time every day? The answer is obvious, I can’t. It’s not fair to them or to me as a parent.

“One liberal professional who has devoted her entire working life to overseeing municipal day care programs warns that the shuffling of millions of middle-class children into day care is creating a new kind of underprivileged child in America. We are, she says, “duplicating the sort of developmental deprivation that used to be suffered only by the poorest and most disadvantaged.”… In her work “Opposing viewpoints”, Elena Neuman says that “A 1991 Washington Post poll found that 55 percent of Americans believed a child is likely to suffer if his mother works outside the home, up from 48 percent in 1989. A 1990 Gallop poll for the Los Angeles Times showed that 73 percent of the public believed children fare best when they have a mother at home. And a 1990 Times-Mirror poll found that 73 percent of respondents believed too many children are being raised in day care, up from 68 percent in 1987.”

I believe that we know what needs to happen, and I think it comes down to a choice, we as parents must wrestle with and make on our own. There are many who suggest that having one parent, usually the mother, stay home and raise the kids through their adolescent years is the solution, and I agree. This is actually the scenario my wife and I currently find ourselves in. This is a hard decision because it usually involves losing out on income, and making sacrifices in order to rearrange the budget and take the big step of faith hoping that God will honor the decision and that everything will work out in the end. It would be an understatement for me to say that I think the positives out weigh the negatives in this debate. To make this kind of decision, many go to friends and family to get their opinions. Some go to books and web sites, however, there is one resource that speaks to this issue that I trust, the bible.

Titus 2:3-4 says, “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and subject to their husbands”. (NIV) In this verse, we find that Paul is encouraging women to take care of the household, and to watch and care for the children. Proverbs 14:1, say’s “the wise woman builds her house…” (NIV) Nowhere in scripture does the bible command the woman to stay home and raise the children, however it is implied and encouraged. This is what I believe would solve several of the issues that kids face today. I believe our children would learn to build better relationships, and they would have that confidence needed to face the hard things in life that many of our kids today are ill equipped to face. I am not implying that every mother should stay at home with her children. I am not naive enough to assume that this is a practical situation for everyone; however, I want to encourage you to think about the well being of your children. If there were more parents willing to do what it takes to raise their kids at home, I firmly believe that our world would be a much better place, now and in the future.