10 Reasons NOT to Put Kids in Daycare

Ten children at an Arkansas daycare were served windshield washer fluid by a center staffer who found the toxic liquid in a refrigerator and mistook it for a flavored drink.

Read the story here.

Very few parents anymore put any value in staying at home with children. They think it's perfectly okay to have their children raised by someone else during working hours...which is usually from 6:30/7am until roughly 6/6:30pm Monday through Friday. This means that the child is woken up, fed breakfast, kissed goodbye, and picked up in time to have dinner with mom and dad...and then off to bed again. And this is for the parents who only work 5 days a week...some work 6.

The reason most give? "We can't afford for me to stay home." Think about it though. The cost of daycare has increased dramatically, state wages are at a standstill due to the economic chaos going on right now, gas prices ( though they have decreased ) are high, etc. If you cut out the expense of daycare, the expense of driving to and from work everyday, possibly meals out everyday, work clothing ( if you happen to work in a business office ), etc...it might be more affordable than you think.

It's no secret that I am very opinionated about women staying home with their children. Babies especially ( My heart breaks for 6, and sometimes even as early as *4* week old babies being dropped off ), but children in general. They don't have their mommy throughout the day. They have a relative ( at best ), or daycare worker. While people pass this off with the standard comments of either "Oh well, I was in daycare as a child and I lived!", or "My child needs a sane mommy, and I can't be sane if I stay home." These are *copouts*. When did our job as a parent, cease to be doing what's best for the CHILD? Daycare is never best for a child. And the selfishness of the sanity comment drives me insane. You had a child, you raise said child. It's really rather simple.

It's also not a secret that I am anti-feminism for the most part. Now, where birth is concerned, that's a different story within the context I am speaking of ( for example, a husband saying no to a home birth...because *he* doesn't feel it's safe, no matter how much research she has done, or how much she *needs* to birth somewhere that is not going to abuse her ). The attitude of feminism has hurt families. Women are no longer happy making a home comfortable for her husband ( provider, very biblical ), and her family. SHE has to feel fulfilled by the corporate world, apparently. And sadly, the corporate world doesn't care about her. She's just another number. She's just another face. However, to her child...she's everything. And she's abandoning the one who sees her as his world...to feel better about herself as a human. See where I'm going?

My children are woken up by me every morning. They can hang out in pajamas if they want to. We have movie days, and learning days ( like field trips ), art days, and just fun days. We have lazy days, productive days...and they always have me here to cuddle them, kiss a boo-boo, answer important kiddie philosophical questions ( like where does God live? )...all of the things that children NEED in order to thrive. They have my absolute attention when they need it. They do not have to raise their hand, or catch a daycare worker at a quiet moment in order to get a pressing question answered, or some extra comfort. They have me.

People put too little thought into what is done to our children. I have written about the maternal-child disconnect before ( maybe I'll resurrect that post ), and it's true. It starts in pregnancy. Mom looks to the doctor for answers, instead of going inside of herself to see what's going on with her body, and doing her own research. Mom relies on doctor to tell her when she will have baby ( arbitrary cervical checks that can do more harm than good ), allows herself to be talked into an induction ( forces baby out before baby and mom's body are ready...often resulting in a cesarean section ), an epidural ( because god forbid she feel the sensations of labor and birth...cuts off any active communication between herself and baby in labor...is unable to feel the urge to push, or push effectively...often results in instrumental delivery or cesarean ), mom sending baby to nursery so she can sleep ( selfish, abandoning baby when baby should be in mom's arms, at mom's breast ), mom chooses to formula feed ( selfish again, unless she's truly in the less than 2% ) and we can't say anything because we have to be effing 'PC' about women making selfish choices, mom chooses to go to work and abandon baby in daycare/relative's house......

Do you see the trend?

I've gone off on a really long tangent. LOL My whole point in this post was to talk about 10 poor children who were given WASHER FLUID to drink. They each drank about an ounce...and they are ages *2* - 6. Yes, it was likely a horrible mistake. But would YOU have given your child washer fluid if you had been home with him/her? Probably not.

Let's face it. No one can take care of our children like we can. Like we should.