The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s new $ 30 million study of the effects of child care on children from birth to three proves very little about child care. But it demonstrates anew that pundits and pols love to seize on social-science findings and “prove” with them exactly what they please.
The authors of the study labored mightily and discovered that — once you set aside the giant, decisive influences on how children do, namely their home life and genetic endowment — the effects of day care are (1) very small and (2) mixed. But watch the headline writers go: “Child Development Enhanced By Good Day Care, Study Finds,” the New York Times trumpets brightly. ” Day care study provides ‘cautionary note’ to mothers,” solemnly intones the Washington Times. And bring on the columnists.
Most tendentious of all is first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose column blesses the study in its first sentence as bringing “peace of mind to millions of parents who work outside the home”: Children in day care “are just as well off intellectually as children cared for at home by full-time mothers.” The column buries the bad news almost halfway through and then misstates it.
“The study did note,” the first lady concedes, “that children who spend a great deal of time in child care tend to have slightly weaker relationships with their mothers.” Actually, the study noted this slight weakening of mother-child relationships consistently, among all groups in nonmaternal care, including those in care just a few hours a week.
Given the difficulty of quantifying such things as “positive engagement with mother,” exactly what this small but “statistically significant” finding means is unclear — disappointing those who hope the quantifiers will solve our child-rearing dilemmas.
