Day Care Allows Mother To Work

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Perhaps one of the more obvious benefits of day care is that it allows the mother to work
(this is because traditionally it is the mother who stays at home to focus on raising the child). This additional freedom can be greatly advantageous to single mothers as it allows them to work and earn money to support the child's upbringing while also ensuring the child is cared for during the mean time. As discovered by Yarrow (1962) the added ‘freedom’ of continuing to work can increase the standard of the child's upbringing. Yarrows study found four distinct groupings of mothers
(working and preferred working, working but preferred not to work, not working and preferred not to work and not working but preferred to work). He found that it was the …show more content…

As such, with day care allowing the mother to work as she so chooses, the mother will be more confident and better equipped to bond with their child, giving the child a better home life.
Although there are some benefits in the child attending day care for both the mother and child, it can pose the risk of a negative consequence for the mother as she may feel she is failing her child. This could be due to societal expectations and pressures which make the mother believe that her prime focus must be her child and only her child. She may feel that she is expected to abandon her career, if she had one, and spend her time at home caring for the child. She may also feel that nobody else can look after her child better, even if that person is a child care professional. This feeling of inadequacy, or betrayal of the child, imagined or not, combined with potential judgement from the mothers peers could negatively affect the mothers relationship with the child. This could c hinder the child's development, if the child feels it can not get as much reassurance from the mother as it …show more content…

For example, if the child has two parents and one sibling they would only have three bonds, whereas if the also went to a day care with two members of staff and six children then they would develop an additional eight bonds bringing the total to eleven. This sort of social setting benefits the child's social development, making them more empathetic and developing feelings of group concern and identification at an earlier age. The best example of this developmental advantage would be the children raised Kibbutzim of Israel. These children have their care needs entirely taken over by professional care givers, called Metapelets, even going so far as to being housed separately from their parents. In a study by Kohen-Raz(1968) it was found that these children where not negatively affected compared to children raised in the family home in regards to physical and mental skills and in fact had shown increased social development, all without weakening the mother-child bond.
Whilst there is a huge benefit for the kibbutz children and other children in similar day care situations, there are associated negative aspects. One is that whilst it can provide a â€oejumpstart―

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