> I'm pretty sure a kid only interacting with their parents for their whole childhood is a good way to get some really messed up kids.
That is not an argument I am making. That is a good way to beat a strawman.
My point is not that they shouldn't be in childcare at all, but that society should support such economic conditions that parents are allowed to spend more time with their kids without having to compromise their economic prospects and so that when they cannot send their children to childcare, say because of a pandemic, it is only a minor inconvenience, rather than a significant burden.
> Childcare isn't just "store children until I get off work", it's engagement. It's that child getting a variety of structured and unstructured time with educators and other kids.
That's the ideal. When you're well educated, have the means to pick up the best childcare for you kid you can find, have done the research, but there's lots of families for whom, yes, childcare is precisely just "store children until I get off work", not out of malice, but because their economic situation hardly allows them to think about it much.
That is not an argument I am making. That is a good way to beat a strawman.
My point is not that they shouldn't be in childcare at all, but that society should support such economic conditions that parents are allowed to spend more time with their kids without having to compromise their economic prospects and so that when they cannot send their children to childcare, say because of a pandemic, it is only a minor inconvenience, rather than a significant burden.
> Childcare isn't just "store children until I get off work", it's engagement. It's that child getting a variety of structured and unstructured time with educators and other kids.
That's the ideal. When you're well educated, have the means to pick up the best childcare for you kid you can find, have done the research, but there's lots of families for whom, yes, childcare is precisely just "store children until I get off work", not out of malice, but because their economic situation hardly allows them to think about it much.