CRECHES: Hope for working mothers?

Young children at a creche. In a bid to smoothen the family’s path financially, many women embrace careers to supplement the family income. The result of this is leaving their little kids to the mercy of child minders and crèches. Does this affect the children? Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare reports.

The Awosopes had been having a disagreement in their home for over two weeks. The crisis had escalated that Mr. Awosope’s mother had vowed to send her daughter-in-law packing if she refuses to toe the line. The cause of their disagreement is their two and a half months old baby, Bode. Since her maternity leave would soon be over, Mrs. Awosope had been scouting the area for a good crèche where she could keep her baby during office hours. This drew the ire of her mother-in-law who commanded that she should leave her job to take care of the child.

For the young couple, this option is not a financially viable one as the husband’s salary alone could not provide the family with the basic necessities due to the bandwagon of siblings, nieces and nephews the couple cater for from both sides of the family. When the elderly Mrs. Awosope discovered that her son would not support her, she changed the tune of her music and labelled the wife a witch who had charmed her son and must therefore leave the house.

The old woman was not ready to leave her church activities back home to help out with child-minding, the only option she could think of was the wife resigning from her job. The younger Mrs. Awosope had insisted that nothing would convince her to become a full time housewife and the crisis is yet to be resolved.

This is the situation many women have found themselves in because of the belief that children taken to day care centres face a lot of hazards. Until recently, it was generally believed that children under five or six years should be at home with their mothers but in reality and practice, because of the industrial revolution, very young children of working mothers are left to child minders or sent to school with older siblings.

Today, the demand for nursery and pre-nursery education greatly exceeds provision in both government and private institutions. This is largely due to the fact that aside career women, even housewives who engage in petty trading at home want some time to themselves, they therefore send their little ones to stay with neighbors or families for some hours each day. This is in no way different from patronising crèches except that the former is a free service.

The main reason why many people argue against crèches and daycare centres is that they confuse nurseries with nursery schools, which operate during school hours and only take children from the age of three or two plus in some cases. A day nursery or a workplace creche normally operates for at least 50 weeks of the year and cares for children between the ages of approximately four months and five years. The workplace crèche caters for the babies and children of the organisations employees. It may be on site or nearby and be run at a subsidy for the parents. Nurseries are generally privately-run and charges vary.

There are state-run nurseries but they are few and far between while places may sometimes be limited to families with special financial needs.

Many arguments have been raised against taking children, especially babies, to child minders. On the other hand many researches carried out have indicated that crèches and daycare centers constitute no harm if one chooses with care. Some people advocate that day care is inherently inferior to parental care and will affect the growth of the child negatively.Other arguments raised against the crèche are many. Some parents feel that the culture of nursery is too institutional especially for babies and would not allow them grow naturally in a love-filled environment. The child would not have the advantage of bonding with one particular care giver and the homely feeling is missing. The hours are less flexible and may not fit into one’s working day. One may find that the nursery closes for one or two weeks a year and if you take your child out at other times you may still have to pay for the place. If the baby is ill, he will not be able to go to the nursery.

However, independent studies have suggested that good daycare for both infants and non-infants is not harmful. In some cases, good daycare centres can provide different experiences than parental care does, especially when children reach two and are ready to interact with other children while a bad day care puts the child at physical, emotional and attachment risk.

It has been proved that how a crèche experience affects a child depends on the facility. The National Institute of Health released a study in March, 2007 after following a group of children through early childhood to the sixth grade. The study found that the children who received a higher quality of child care scored higher on fifth grade vocabulary tests then the children who had attended child care of a lower quality. The study also reported that teachers found children from child care to be “disobedient”, fight more frequently, and more argumentative. The study reported the increases in aggression and vocabularies were small. Also, a 2001 report showed that children in high quality daycare scored higher on tests of language, memory and other skills than did children of stay-at-home mothers or children in lower-quality day care.

Since the emphasis lies on getting a good crèche, the question raised is, how does one identify a good one? Yekemi Ojo works in a school that offers crèche facilities. She told Midweek Tribune that, “A good crèche should have a warm and welcoming atmosphere, with plenty of colourful displays on the walls, cheerful staff and happy children. The children and babies will be cared for by a combination of qualified and unqualified staff but it must be registered under the Children Act, therefore both the ratios of qualified to unqualified staff, plus the number of children per care minder will be strictly laid down.”

She added that, ‘it should offer a very reliable environment, when a child minder is sick on occasion; a nursery must still be open for business. A good nursery should arrange varied activities appropriate to age groups, as well as trips out and celebration of festivals.’

It has been proved that a consistent and good daycare may ensure adequate early childhood education for children of less skilled parents. From a parental perspective, good daycare can complement good parenting and the child will be in a social setting with plenty of other children around, this aids learning. What needs to be done is just to get a good care centre where the child would be given a lot of care and attention just like at home.