In the interests of the mental health of all of us, we need to talk about all the factors that adversely affect human wellbeing. We talk about poverty, age, racism, disability, LGBTQ and all manner of other important social and economic issues that affect our emotional wellbeing but we don't talk about daycare.  Daycare in the form of day nursery is an early experience that adversely affects attachment and attachment is the foundation of our way of being in the world, particularly in our relationships at all levels and therefore our mental health, beginning with anxiety and depression, for the whole of our lives.  More learned and notable individuals than me have drawn on plenty of research evidence to try to make this point, but they are generally shot down in flames for being anti-women.  I don't believe they or I are anti-women at all - they are pro children and therefore pro human beings. Unfortunately, I have not so far read any really creative solutions to the problem of meeting the needs of women who want to work and children who need at best their mother and at least a consistent, loving primary attachment relationship with a responsive adult, for the first 30 months of their lives. 

The collective flames of fury are ignited immediately at the first suggestion that daycare is not optimal for the nurturing of our most vulnerable, voiceless members of society, and the misguided notion that women are being blamed for making choices that adversely affect their children. So, I had better also suggest that there are alternatives to sending women back to the kitchen sink and tying them there. While I haven’t read creative alternatives in direct relation to the daycare trend, I have read about alternatives that would mean we could do better by our children. Regarding blame, the fault lies with society, its systems and those with the power to change them. A fantastic book for understanding how we are where we are and where we could go is Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bergman. Others of the same ilk and equally readable are Post Capitalism: A Guide To Our Future by Paul Mason and Talking To My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief Guide to Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis. So, more ideological (possible but longer term) solutions would include ideas like sharing work differently - so job shares become the norm; Re-evaluate how we define work and how we value it - is it about money or fulfilment and where is the balance?; Consider our relationship with ‘stuff’ because it is also destroying the planet - what is our money for?; ‘Undo’ the deregulation of the 1980s that caused house prices to soar artificially and tied people into unmanageable mortgages.

More immediate possible political solutions, ones that work within the system, could include giving at least 2 years 6 months of maternity leave that parents could share; pay grandparents or other family members to do the primary care; make part time work a compulsory option for parents within existing flexible working legislation; educate prospective and new parents in infant development so they do not find it ‘boring’ to stay at home, rather they can engage in it as a crucial and rewarding activity: require all adults working in childcare to have a degree in child development and pay them graduate salaries - yes, this would make them expensive but this is an important job that is disastrously undervalued to our our social and economic cost. Poor mental health is vastly more expensive longer term in terms of lost work, health care and crime. If child care were given its correct status as a profession, those who choose to parent their own children in the first 30 months would not feel they were losing theirs. 

When entering  therapy, the client is in a state of dissonance or incongruence or they are experiencing disturbance. They have made a decision to have compassion for themselves, acknowledge their vulnerability, to stop living behind narratives constructed for survival, take their courage in both hands and explore avenues for change. They have a desire to make things better, to find more comfortable, authentic and peaceful ways of being in the world. As a society, we need to come together and collaboratively  follow the example of the client in therapy. With compassion for ourselves and one another, we need to acknowledge that what we are doing is not working for our children and with honesty explore ways that we can do better for them.  We need to pay attention to soaring rates of anxiety and depression and other mental health diagnosis and do everything we can to alleviate the suffering. We should not underestimate the courage this demands. In therapy we no longer bury the pain, we go towards it, as a society, we can go towards it together, we can hold each other - we must talk about daycare…

In subsequent posts I will talk (and direct to relevant reading material) about why daycare is an inappropriate setting for our youngest children, what children need to thrive in their first 30 months and I will address the following beliefs among others:

• I cannot afford to stay at home
• Everyone does it so it must be ok
• When they grow up they won’t remember
• We can compensate by…holidays, house, activities
• Its quality of time not quantity that is important
• I have no choice
• She/he loves nursery
• They are upset to begin with but they get used to it
• They will be ahead academically when they go to school
• I wouldn’t be able to stimulate them at home to the same degree
• It didn’t do me any harm
• I’m not the kind of parent that can stay at home 
• I’d be so bored at home - I need more fulfilment
• Mum guilt affects everyone, it is just one of those things
• Attachment is a white middle class concept
• The key worker system takes care of the attachment problem
• Nursery teaches them resilience, independence and social skills
• Poverty is a bigger factor in later mental health