Questioning All-day K For All Children
The Wilder Foundation's 2004 research revealed a wide range of childcare arrangements
in Minnesota, including large numbers of children who never attend daycare centers. These kids stay with grandmas, friends, or, in my family's case, parents who work opposite shifts. Not unlike centers, these informal arrangements vary in quality from superior to horrifying.Yet the expectation of daycare centers dominates our collective imagination and policies. An acquaintance without children once told me that daycare would be the "right thing to do" after our daughter's infancy.
"Why?" I asked, confused.
"Well, to socialize her!" he replied. I think he said "Duh!" under his breath.
Apparently, as children who have never attended daycare, our daughters are at heightened risk of becoming socially ill-equipped pariahs. It took me only five minutes on BabyCenter.com to connect with at least four moms who are similarly annoyed. One mom sagely advised me to challenge people to define "socialize." Are play dates, part-time preschool, Early Childhood and Family Education classes, group music classes, Sunday school, swimming lessons, family events, and parties adequately social?
The same attitude continues when it comes to kindergarten. Full-day kindergarten is gaining momentum in Minnesota, largely because it supposedly takes kids out of daycare and into a more educational setting, a "free" one to boot! Our school district has decided that our daughter, along with everyone else's, is better off spending a mandatory six hours per day, not three, in the institution of kindergarten. All-day K, the rhetoric goes, democratizes 5-year-olds, brings up the strugglers. They're advertising this "free" service to draw more families and, therefore, more tax dollars to the school district. Granted, the district cut the one-on-one reading help for struggling children to afford all-day K.
And what of those who do not attend daycare and are not behind in any way according to their preschool or Early Childhood Education teachers? Well, those kids need to be socialized, and volunteering with me at the nursing home or playing with Costa Rican babies at the beach doesn't seem to count. All-day, everyday interaction with one's precise age peers fosters the only normalcy that counts. With all due respect to people my age, I'd go out of my mind if I had to spend time only with them.
Don't get me wrong. Daycare centers have their place. I'd give up new carpet in the living room and huge bonuses for my favorite CEOs to see more public investment in high-quality daycare. There very well may be centers that outshine the girls' home life, especially on my off days. But what irks me is that so many people who have never set foot inside a daycare center swallow the myth that it's the only option modern children has for success or social normalcy. Although we do not plan to homeschool our kids, I'm getting a sense of the ignorant judgments home schooling parents are up against.
It does feel a bit perverse to be asserting the rights of the children who have two involved parents and no known disabilities. Yet it is important to understand that there truly are all kinds of children in our midst, including children without daycare experience. Before judging our children's social or intellectual abilities based on a lack of this "normalizing" experience, please come for dinner and get to know them. Of course, my opinions are incredibly suspect: Not only did I not attend daycare, I didn't even go to preschool. On that note, I'm headed back to my family cave for the night to enjoy some raw rabbit.
Monica Gallagher is a parent, former teacher, and a member of her school district's Parent Advisory Council for Early Childhood and Family Education Programs.
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