It's extremely sad, but a consistent finding in early childhood education is that the children who thrive most in daycares tend to come from the least advantaged backgrounds.
So a policy of paying parents to stay home would mostly benefit kids who are already well off.
Plus daycare allows women to continue their career progression. It’s soo important. Not every woman wants to end their career as a mother to a young kid. Daycare enables successful women to thrive and still have families.
How so?
Those poor kids have learning deficits. The "well-off" kids often have morality deficits.
A mom or dad raising them properly might help them more than being Student #642 in a government childcare facility.
This isn't an argument against childcare. My children attended preschool for 3 years before Kindergarten. But I'd rather that people got equal support to have a stay-at-home parent so that people can choose.
- Kids need lots of time with their parents
- Kids need lots of time around other kids
You can do that by sending them to daycare, and ALSO spending lots of time with them when they're home.
You can also do that by taking time off work, and then taking your kid(s) to places with other kids.
Both work; and it depends on your context which works for you.
If this is the criticism then it's a glowing endorsement of daycare and school.
From what I’ve seen, the research leans the other way. For example:
Children from more advantaged families were actually more likely to view unfair distribution as unfair, while poorer children were more likely to accept it. [0]
Mother’s work hours show no link to childhood behavioral problems, it’s schedule flexibility that matters. [1]
For working-class families, more father work hours correlated with fewer behavioral problems.[2]
The idea that “well-off kids” end up with morality deficits because their parents work a lot doesn’t seem to hold up.
[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13230
Is this based on something?
There's research left and right shows that children under 36 months at group nurseries are linked to increased aggression, anxiety, lower emotional skills, elevated cortisol (stress hormone), which is associated with long-term health and developmental risks.
Infants and children do better with one-to-one care at home by their parents and familiar faces, rather than strangers in a group setting.
I hear you saying the benefit of dedicated caregiving for children mostly helps families with less economic advantage. I'd agree with that, and suggest that OP's proposal capitalizes on exactly that. I'm not convinced of what may be implied in your argument that low-earners make for bad parents and that children should be separated more from their parents for their own good. Let the internal dynamics of a family be solved first, before saying we need to separate parents from children more.
Moreover, those with more economic advantage are unlikely to take a stipend in exchange for staying home. That's not a good deal when keeping the job pays so much that they can afford to pay for childcare.
It is precisely those with less advantage who will take the deal.
So I don't agree with your prediction that such a stipend mostly benefits those who are already well off.
The market already has incentives to create them -- a ton of good places have waiting lists nationwide, showing unmet demand even at the current price. This suggests the price will need to go higher to attract enough people to do this job. It seems their "$12,000 value" estimate is based on an optimistic belief that they will be buying childcare for their citizens at current prices. When they realize there aren't that many slots available at current rates of pay, will they be okay significantly increasing the costs of the program?
So, my expectations for these facilities are very low and that's a big part of my concern.
"So I can provide for my family"
"Why do you want to provide for your family?"
"So my children can have happy and fulfilling lives"
"What makes your young children feel happy?"
"Spending time with me"
A strong parent-child relationship is the biggest determination of life-long child happiness even into old age.
Once you see it, you'll see it everywhere.
So the children that do well in daycare comes from poor homes? So kids from rich home don't do well in daycare?
Every interaction I've ever had says the opposite. The disruptive bully at school usually comes from a broken home.
A realistic stay-at-home subsidy would max out around $30k. Your proposal only meaningfully shifts incentives for the bottom income quintile. For everyone else:
- Upper-income families can already afford to choose whatever setup they want.
- Middle-income families couldn’t take it because it’d mean too steep a drop in income.
So the alternative you proposed economically benefits the bottom quintile while leaving their kids worse off. For everyone else, it probably either doesn't matter or gives them cash they don't need as much.
Also people work due to other reasons unrelated to providing for their family. Individuals are allowed to have lives outside their kids.