Working mothers 'damage their child's health'

Working mothers are harming their children's long-term development by sending them to nursery from an early age, a leading author said yesterday.

Michael Morpurgo, the former children's laureate, sparked controversy by saying that it was "utterly extraordinary" that half of mothers with children under five had jobs outside the home.

He said lack of contact between children and parents was directly to blame for rising levels of mental health problems, sleep disorders and anorexia in young people.

The comments were dismissed by child care groups, which said studies showed that youngsters benefited from increased contact with other children as early as possible. But they won support from the Conservatives, who said nurseries were subjecting children to an unnecessarily formal education.

The debate follows the launch of The Daily Telegraph's Hold on to Childhood campaign – a drive to raise awareness of the damage caused by junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling and electronic entertainment on children's lives.

Mr Morpurgo, recently awarded an OBE for services to literature, said: "It is utterly extraordinary now how many children grow up without their mothers around them. You have got 50 per cent of mothers these days of children under five who are employed outside the home. Well, you are cutting off something there, whether you like it or not, and it may be an uncomfortable thing to recognise."

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that sending children to school at four or five was too early.

"We pack our children off to care groups or even to school, but many countries in Europe do not send their children until they are seven," he said. "They live in the bosom of their family. That is where they are nurtured – within the nest. That is where they can grow their wings, they can learn to fly." He added: "I don't think it is an accident that one in 10 of our children is suffering from mental health problems, from sleep disorders, from eating disorders and things like that."

In October, an eminent group of child care experts raised concerns about the long-term effect of placing children in inadequate day nurseries. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they said that separating children from their mothers risked "storing up behavioural difficulties".

Last year, research by Professor Michael Lamb, of Cambridge University, found that nurseries caused distress to young children. He found that levels of the stress hormone cortisol doubled in youngsters during the first nine days of child care without their mothers present and continued to be much higher among children five months after starting nursery compared with those who stayed at home.

Of the 521,000 day care places in England and Wales, about 85,000 are thought to be taken by under-threes.

Sue Palmer, a former head teacher, who wrote the book Toxic Childhood, charting the damaging influences of modern life, said: "Children need one-on-one care in their earliest years. It affects their education and gives them a head start in life. While nurseries can provide safety and warmth, they cannot provide the attention and consistency that a mother can."

However, Hayley Doyle, spokesman for the National Day Nurseries Association, said: "Many parents need to work and should not be criticised for choosing to send their children to a nursery. The vast majority of nurseries are recognised as being of a high standard and studies have shown that children who have been to them are, in the long term, higher achievers and better earners."

But David Willetts, the Conservative shadow education secretary, agreed that nursery education might be harming young children. "What is happening is we are making child care for three- and four-year-olds much too like a formal school experience – that's what all these Ofsted inspections are forcing them to do," he said. "We are not allowing children to go through their own development."

Penny Nicholls, strategic director of the Children's Society's two-year Good Childhood Inquiry, said: "We have one of the lowest wellbeing quotas in Europe for children. Even though we are twice as wealthy as we were 50 years ago, that wealth has not brought happiness."

However, to suggest that parents who have two choices: both work or live in poverty, and choose to both work are somehow doing wrong, is a little over the top.

I never suggested that.

I am quite familiar with the day care mentality. My mother provided child care in our home in order to be able to raise us herself. My wife did the same so that we could raise our children at home. My daughter worked in a day care center for a period of time. In most cases, the parents who worked while their children were in daycare drove new cars, lived in large houses, owned plenty of nice toys, and, by the way, didn't hesitate to leave their kids in day care during nonworking hours so they could shop, go to social events, etc.. I personally know guys earning $80,000+ who put their infants in daycare so their wives can work.

Warehousing children has become the normal thing to to, to the point where couples don't even give it a second thought. There are couples and single parents who have no choice, and I feel sorry for their children, but I refuse to go along with the fantasy that there is no difference between a parent's love and a stranger's job, just to assuage people's feelings.

Sometimes the truth hurts, but it's still the truth.

I read an article not too long ago about this. The writer claimd that while the children still had the heathy attachment to the mother, the attachment (for lack of a better word) the mother had with the infant was different than that of the mother that was with her child all day.

I believe theere may be some truth to that. The mothers I know who work seem to spend less time with their children even in off work times that the SAHM moms that I know. They seem to try and over compensate with "stuff" and it seems the children, as they are getting older, know how to work the guilt factor.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.