The question of how much daycare families should use is vitally important. The quality and quantity of daycare parents subject their children has livelong consequences. The affects are wide-reaching, affecting children’s attachment to their parents, happiness, anxiety, depression and other mental health outcomes. The decisions to use daycare also reflects the priorities and preparedness of the parents, particularly the mother, to engage their children positively. The time a baby spends in daycare is time it is not bonding with family. It is time where mom’s cannot breast feed. It is also time parents cannot spend practicing being good parents. The decision to use daycare can be part of a pattern of the mother avoiding the responsibilities of motherhood. On the other hand, many new mothers read that daycare or pre-school is actually good for children. This leads to a lot of understandable confusion.

Deciding how much daycare to use is a complicated issue due to all of the factors involved. But really, it simplifies down to how good or bad the daycare is relative to the mom. Another complication is a lot of bad advice out there because of bad research into the matter.  There is a political interest for researchers to pander to working mothers that want to be told it is ok to use full time daycare.  Also, research departments are filled with biased women. They do not want to do quality research into what makes up a neglectful amount of daycare. They don’t want to morally convict themselves.  “Liberated” women outside of academia don’t want to read about what responsible motherhood is either.

How Excessive Daycare can lead to Trauma

Excessive daycare is something that I return to repeatedly in this blog. Due to how easily some parents make the decision my focus may seem strange. But the quality-of-care children receive is incredibly important for their long-term happiness. The framework I use to evaluate abusive and neglectful behavior is the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey. At first glance people may think what does daycare have to do with ACES? Some of the items on there are really bad, like being sexually assaulted or having a parent addicted to street drugs. Of course, having a mentally ill parent would be a traumatic experience. But daycare? Yes, actually.

People have a emotional response to things that are acutely stressful and we easily see abuse for what it is. It is a lot harder for society to properly judge people or situations that are chronically neglectful because each single day doesn’t seem so bad. ACES show the daily stress of chronic neglect can be build up and be equal to the harm caused by a intense abusive experience.

It is not strange to come across someone that has a “good life” and they wonder why they seem to not be happy. Their job is going well, their finances are in order and they have a good homelife. Why do they seem so unexcited or resentful about things? Often, they have no idea about ACES and after a few questions you find out they have an ACES score of 5 or 7 off of what they thought was a normal, unremarkable upbringing.

The stress of ACES on society is fantastically expensive in terms of human suffering and financially. Almost every fashionable social issue society faces today is affected in some way by ACES. One of the largest negative outcomes that could be addressed is depressive disorders.

Below are two questions from the ACES survey. If someone receives a high quantity of daycare they are more likely to answer “yes” to question 4. If they have low quality of parental care are more likely to answer “yes” to questions 4 and 5. Both of those are easily avoided ACES that many people in western societies pick up from the neglect of their mothers. They could easily be avoided. The goal of parents should be to have ACES 0 children. The goal of a trauma informed woman is to have ACE 0 Children. A trauma informed society wants ACES Zero citizens. I am going to cover ACES in detail in a upcoming article.

The major factors researchers explored are the quantity non-maternal day care, the quality of maternal care versus non-maternal care, and the educational outcomes of the children. Researchers have focused on separation or attachment disorders but have not couched the neglect in the term of ACES. I find that is a very big missing piece.

One main source of confusion is many people do not know what comprises good research.  In short, the research showing non-maternal daycare is more valid than than research supporting daycare’s beneficial outcomes. This post will describe what we know about how bad daycare is. Another upcoming post will review the shoddy research that supports daycare.

Understanding the confusion about daycare and maternal neglect

It is deeply irresponsible to separate the conversation on non-maternal daycare by looking at educational outcomes and ignoring mental health outcomes.  What is the point of damaging someone’s mental health so they can learn differential calculus by age 15? So they can be the most highly educated person their therapist sees this week?

There is often attempts to confuse the issues at hand when discussing pre-school, after-school activities, and nonmaternal day, et cetera.  Another problem comes when shoddy researchers use implicit biases to justify non-maternal care. The emphasis on mental health versus education allows people to be two faced and speak “honestly” to different audiences.  Researchers can talk about daycare, trauma informed care or abuse and neglect to one audience. They put on another face when talking to other stakeholders and talk about daycares academic benefits.

Assuming Going to College is better than other life decisions

Being aware of one’s biases when conduction research is one of the first things they teach you in a research methods class. If a researcher is not aware of their implicit and explicit biases their research runs the risk of not being meaningful. Even worse, it can be outright harmful to society. Research into daycare or maternal neglect is no different.

A lot of researchers are implicitly or explicitly biased in favor of the college track. With their baggage, the researchers assume that college is the is better than a host of other life paths.  I assume it’s a bias that over-educated people want others to be overeducated as well.  They cannot see pass their pretentions and probably have no idea how condescending they appear.  There are plenty of high achieving people without college degrees and low functioning people with college degrees. Researchers should not place desire for in classroom learning over other methods. Considering that the mental health of college students is getting worse we could argue that many people are successful despite going to college rather than because they went to college.

It is common to read about long term research into daycare, preschool and aftercare that reports higher hours are better because the kids, now they are teenagers, want to go to college. The research does not report on vocational ambitions like wanting to enter a trade school or joining the military. The researchers are completely disinterested in women that want to be caring and loving mothers.

Their narrow-minded pretentiousness stunts their analysis[1] because they assume well adjusted people want to go to college.  What is wrong with wanting to go to a trade school,  wanting a trade in general, joining the military, or getting a job with a good health care and retirement plan? Or what is wrong if a woman prioritizes her family over her career and her education?

Well-structured research would look at

• Daycare
  • The age it began
  • How Many hours per week by age
• Wellbeing
  • ACES interview & other mental health assessments
  • Physical health
• Academic success (only in high school)
  • Beyond the degree, what did they actually learn
• Vocational success
• Criminal history/attitudes
• Substance use

and it would do so with a more robust awareness of biases than the current researchers do.

Understanding Quality of Care: Engaging the kids

Part of quality care is what is done with the kiddos.  Quality of care isn’t just keeping a superficial warmth affect with your children while you put them in front of the TV and serve them a microwavable dinner.  Quality care is warmly engaging the children with:

• reading

• arts and crafts

• household chores

• routines

• naps

Every one of these activities is a chance to positively engage children. Or, in the case of naps, ensure that activities stay positive.

Understanding Quality of Care: Maternal Warmth

Society has known for a long time that the bond between a mother and child is one of the most important things to guarantee the child’s long-term success.  People did not debate the idea that a mother should warmly and continuously engage her children. This knowledge was the foundation of the tender years doctrine as society understood children needed access to warm mothers. Once women decided to dedicate themselves to more materialistic and status-based pursuits then it became controversial.  Feminist now resent the tender years doctrine for the responsibility it brings.

Warmth Research in the 1950

In the 1950s researchers didn’t have enough data and computer power to run the statistics to show how bad certain amounts of non-maternal daycare.  The results need to be broken down by age daycare began and many hours a week children were exposed to it.  They also had to collect and account for demographic or socio-economic factors.  What makes excessive daycare more damaging? What makes it less damaging?  Just how bad is day care for newborns?  For toddlers?  It takes a lot of data to have valid research and be able to speak on authority on the matter.

The focus on children’s mental health and the role of motherhood in society isn’t new.  In the 1950s John Bowlby argued that a mother’s love in infancy and childhood was just as important for mental health as vitamins were for physical health.  As more and more women moved into the workforce people “forgot” how important this bond was.

This research isn’t popular. Especially with feminist.  They despise warmly attached mothers and attack them on multiple fronts.  Betty Friedan, who is credited with starting the Third wave of feminism, told mothers it was their responsibility to neglect their children so they could get jobs taking care of even more neglected children.  Simone de Bouvier, who is credited with kicking off the Second Wave of Feminism make it clear that women should not “authorized” to be stay at home mothers.  Authoritarian psychopaths. Choice feminism has always been a lie.

Warmth Research in the 1980s

I commonly mention the phenomenon that Birds of A Feather Flock Together.  Mildly abusive and neglectful people defend severely abusive and neglectful people as their first line of defense in defending themselves.  Look at the difference In the quote above in offending from families with affectionate women versus contentious women.  Contentious women are a health disaster and a crime disaster. But so many women flock together while these contentious women create the next generation of depressed and anxious people. Also, the next generation of criminals.

Modern Research into Warmth

We have had the ability to shift through the data now for a couple of decades.  Turns out our traditional assumptions were true, non-maternal daycare is bad.  As little as 10 hours a week causes notable damage to toddlers relationship with the mother if the mother is cold (get anchor).  Women, rounding up, still chose to be neglectful and abusive. 

Youth Level Survey/Case Management Inventory

My organization uses the Youth Level Survey/Case Management Instrument (YLS/CMI) to determine its case management and interventions for juvenile delinquents.  The research shows that a lot of the “old fashioned” ways of thinking about a child’s upbringing and criminality have been true all along.  Since the system is proprietary I don’t know how much of it I can speak to without violating some kind of copywrite.  Despite what the Fabians and Socialist may tell you, crime isn’t truly tied to socioeconomic status, poverty or personal distress.  It is tied to poor parent child relationships (particularly the mothers), educational achievement, and anti-social attitudes and associates.

Non-Maternal Daycare Modern Research

Before we dig into some research some notes.  Non-Maternal Day Care is any daycare not done by the mother.  Quite simply, whenever the mother isn’t readily available the child is either receiving non-maternal daycare or they are receiving no care at all.  For maternal daycare Mommy and child do not need to be in the same room or engaging in the same activity. Children just need to know they can rely on Mommy very quickly.  The older the kids are the further they can be and still be cared for by their mother. It is also a bit different if the kid decides to happily go outside or is unhappily pushed outside.

If mommy is inside and the kids are playing happily in the yard or with some friends across the street then they know exactly where mommy is. She can attend to any emotional or physical needs that could emerge.  Eventually as I liked above, stress hormones rise and separation anxiety kicks in.

If children are with alone with Daddy or at preschool even through and are doing the exact same activities they are increasing their hours of non-maternal daycare.  The amount of hours is a quantity issue.  The need for a mother with a warm affect is a quality issue.  Children in their tender years need both. As they get older they need less quantity but they still need quality.

The research I cite is typical; meaning there are a lot more research that confirms the general findings of what I am citing.  If you want a more exhaustive literature review please, feel free, empowered, and encouraged to go to the articles I cite and go through their literature reviews.  I am confident you will find that non-maternal daycare is bad, the earlier it starts the worse it is.  The only seeming benefit I have found is kids in daycare do somewhat better on language acquisition.  If you find that compelling reason to advocate for non-maternal day care just imagine how articulate children will be when they talk about how neglectful and abusive their mothers are.

A hard copy of the book I reference the most is here. Quite frankly I haven’t bought it myself.  I would beggar myself if I bought all the source materials I desired. A summary is here. Much of the research is behind academic paywalls but there are news articles that do a fair job of summarizing the work. If an article is available for free I will link to it.  If an article is behind a paywall but the abstract is useful I will link to the abstract.

10 hours of Non-Maternal Daycare a Week for 15-month year old

10 hours of nonmaternal child care a week is linked to a weaker attachment, or bond, with the mother at 15 months old. But that is only if the mother also is highly insensitive, or unresponsive, to her child’s needs.

How Much Child Care Is Too Much? Coming Research Offers Some Answers

That is a quote from research from the 2005.  The modern woman reads that and cannot properly process what she has read.  She does not know how harmful the weak attachment is. Or, she thinks that most women are not highly insensitive to their children’s needs. Her mind comes up with all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify the current state of motherhood and the fact that the vast majority of toddlers are in more than 10 hours of daycare.   The section below shows that at 20 hours of daycare most women were insensitive enough to have attachment issues.

Having viewed many mothers in action or hearing them talk about their day I can tell you many modern women are quite unresponsive. 

The modern woman also looks at the low 10-hour threshold with horror.  It goes against her anti-social expectations.  Modern women have been fed a fantasy life where they be away from their children while still being a “good mother”.  They were angry at people that did not pander to their Suggestibility.  The lie simply isn’t the case. The world groans with the reality of maternal abuse and neglect and how anti-social modern women are.

20+ Hours a and 35+ Hours a Week for 13 Month Old’s

Analysis of data obtained during Strange Situation assessments conducted when infants were 12 and 13 months of age revealed that infants exposed to 20 or more hours of care per week displayed more avoidance of mother on reunion and were more likely to be classified as insecurely attached to her than infants with less than 20 hours of care per week.

Sons whose mothers were employed on a full-time basis (greater than 35 hours per week) were more likely to be classified as insecure in their attachments to their fathers than all other boys, and, as a result, sons with 20 or more hours of nonmaternal care per week were more likely to be insecurely attached to both parents and less likely to be securely attached to both parents than other boys. [paragraph break and emphasis for readability]

Nonmaternal care in the first year of life and the security of infant-parent attachment – PubMed (nih.gov)

This older research is important for several reasons.  First, it shows how long we have known that non-maternal daycare leads to attachment issues at a young age.  It also shows that for many kids negative results happen at 20 hours a week.  The above section shows that as low as 10 hours can be bad if the mother is not responsive.  This article shows that at 20 hours half the kids get insecurely attached with their moms & Dads. A lot of the research seems to forget the importance of attachments to fathers.   If you never really bonded with your father it may be because your mother didn’t want to provide the care of a mother.

60 Hours of Non-Maternal Day Care for infants

Findings suggest that during a sensitive period of attachment formation, infants who spend more than 60 hr/week in nonmaternal care may be at an increased risk of forming a disorganized attachment.

Very extensive nonmaternal care predicts mother-infant attachment disorganization: Convergent evidence from two samples

At 60 hours of non-maternal daycare children get full blown attachment disorders.  A lot of concerns about mother-child bond occur on a spectrum and a attachment disorder is about as bad as it gets.  In this modern age that amount of nonmaternal daycare is easily reached if mommy is doing shift work and the kid is shuffled between daycare and family care.

30-45 hours of Non-Maternal Daycare a week for 4 ½ year old

The risk threshold goes up to 45 hours of childcare a week by the time children reach 4½ years old. Children who averaged 30 to 45 hours in child care a week scored just slightly above the mean on a scale of behavior problems.

How Much Child Care Is Too Much? Coming Research Offers Some Answers

Imagine a day in  modern commuter home for a day-care or pre-school aged kids. No one wakes up naturally they all get woken up by an alarm clock or someone else rousing them.  They have a quick breakfast, probably not at the table and dad takes the kids to daycare or pre-school, and then mom picks the kids up from daycare.  She gets home and puts the kid in front of the TV so she can make something resembling a dinner.  She does most of the cooking and cleaning by herself because to include her child would take even more time and effort.  They eat dinner and then there may be some book reading before bed, or there could be more electronics.  Maybe depending on the time of year there is some soccer or basketball lessons or other activity for the kids a couple of times a week. 

That is a fraction of the both the quality and quantity of care children should be having with their mothers.

45 hours of Non-Maternal Daycare a week for 4 ½ year Olds

At 45 hours a week, though, the increase in scores became noteworthy, with children in that much child care posting a score of 53.1, indicating more behavior problems than would be found in the population as a whole.

How Much Child Care Is Too Much? Coming Research Offers Some Answers

Pray consider a professional woman (Nurse, doctors, mental health providers ) doing shift work so she has to work weekends, swings or grave shift.  Many professional women will put their children in pre-school or daycare because mommy wants to focus on her children’s academic outcomes so she could deflect from mental health issues stemming from her neglect. This allows her to build herself up as a good person. 

Closing Thoughts

Non-Maternal Daycare is a serious problem due to separation anxiety and insecure attachments with children parents.  For the first year of a kid life as little as 10 hours is to much for many children.  A responsible mother wanting to have 2-3 kids should create a realistic plan to be a stay-at-home mother. This plan covers all of the years all of the children are under 4 ½ years old.  Whether she wants to group the kids together or spread them out is up to her and her husband.

A Trauma Informed Woman versus Modern Women

A Trauma Informed Woman wants to have children that are ACES 0. She also wants to avoid psychopathic reasoning, excuses, and behaviors in her life. Most modern women don’t want to function as trauma informed women. There is less excitement. It is harder to feel powerful by being abusive or the thrill of getting out of their responsibilities.

I want women who have issues with men think about non-maternal daycare. Think about the excuses that women use to get out of providing the care only a mother can provide. These women think like psychopaths and men know that. The wide swaths of the female population that consider motherhood or marriage oppression hold deeply anti-social views and anti-social expectations. But these women also think that men are the problem. They wonder why men won’t open up to them and feel vulnerable around them. They get angry at closed off men and the expectations they be good women.

In other words, modern women that use too much daycare cannot be trusted because they are not trauma informed.

Emotionally Intelligent versus Anti-Social

All Emotionally intelligent women are Trauma Informed but not all Trauma Informed Women are emotionally intelligent. Some skill development needs to happen to put the information into practice. The emotionally intelligent woman approaches information into being a caring and loving mother with excitement.  An anti-social woman responds to this information with hostility or irritability.  The emotional response of the body tells the truth of whether a woman is emotionally intelligent or not and that is why emotional awareness is so important to self-assessment.

The emotionally intelligent woman has empathy for men who want to avoid neglectful and abusive women.  She understands that a good man wants a good wife for the future mother of their children.  That means he wants a woman willing to use appropriate amounts of daycare.  The anti-social woman is hostile to these prudent men.  They often pretentiously think they are above both prudent men that want caring women as well as the women that prioritize being caring wives and mothers.

I have written at length about women wanting to be emotionally intelligent out of the home but are deeply resentful to being emotionally intelligent inside the home. In short, these women lack integrity and I argue we should gauge someone’s emotional intelligence by where they display the least emotional competencies, not the most. Please have a read.

Recommendations

Women

Women wanting to be caring and loving mothers would do best to separate themselves from anti-social men and women. This includes personalities on “anti” social media and especially comedy that normalizes woman’s misbehavior. The less time anyone spends with anti-social people the more time you have to build relationships emotionally intelligent people. 

A woman’s reaction to knowledge about maternal abuse and neglect can signal a lot.  She may decide for herself she needs to reassess herself and change into a truly caring and loving woman.  What she needs to do can vary greatly, from simple self-education to intensive therapy. 

Realize that well-adjusted men don’t want a woman that is even mildly psychopathic or narcissistic. If you read any of the excuses that a psychopathic woman would make to use excessive daycare and they make sense to you then functionally you are closer to a psychopath than most men want. And it isn’t ok to think that if you are mildly psychopathic or narcissistic you are still a catch. No: you are not.

There is a degree of self-creation when someone decides what kind of person they want to be. I remember reading the Psychopathy Checklist and easily thought that if that is bad then I want to do the opposite. For years I worked on self-correcting my thoughts and regulating my behavior while I was still in my teens. I am sure other people looked at the list and thought to make excuses for each behavior they wanted to do. Women, the longer you have gone making excuses for any item on the psychopathy checklist the more you have suppressed your own ability to be a good wife and mother.

I hope you have enough goodness to have the willingness to undo any damage you did to yourselves by justifying any anti-social thoughts and expectations you had.

Men

It is going to be hard to find a caring and loving woman to be the mother of your child. My mother wasn’t so I wanted a woman that would be good for my children. I found a woman that said she understood the research. She said she had the family values to be a good mom but she was lying to me. She agreed to stop working when our baby came but refused and then she got worse and worse. I hope you have better luck than I did.

I see other men who don’t care their wife put their kids in daycare after 4 week of maternity leave. Now the kids are speech delayed, behind in school, or have anxiety and depression issues. It is almost to the point that if a woman wants children in wedlock she should agree to quit working at the engagement because you cannot trust them to do it later. If she starts working before the kid are in kindergarten it should be grounds for a at-fault divorce.

It may be too late for you to have a caring and loving woman as the mother of your children. But hopefully you will be able to raise your sons and daughters with the information needed for them to be good parents with good spouses.