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What great timing. Here I was, trying once again to wrap my head around the child-care issue, and the front page of Sunday's Citizen proudly announced a feature on the "real debate" on the topic, which happens to be "the one we're not having."

Reading it taught me a few nifty things, particularly that assuming the real debate concerns what Canada as a nation wants to do with "its" children is so spectacularly besides the point it's almost funny. The real debate is the one between those who think parents come first and those who think children come first. And we're still not having it, at least not in the newspapers.

Forget the national psyche for a minute

Forget the national psyche for a minute. Think about children instead. The "debate" has started again over whether it's best to give families $100 a month per child under six or a subsidized, regulated day-care spot, and I want to rip my hair out in frustration. Who cares what politicians decide? It's not about them, and it's not about the money. Mind you, the other fun tidbit in the Citizen feature was the Vanier Institute of the Family's estimate that "if one parent in every two-income family were to stay home, the cost to federal and provincial tax revenues would be in the range of $35 billion a year."

What a great way to starve those silly governments of their beloved cash. I love it, even though it's not really why I'd be staying home to look after my offspring.

No, the real issue isn't the lifestyle to which parents (or governments) have grown accustomed. It's kids and what they need to grow into healthy, reasonably well-adjusted young persons instead of screaming, hopelessly medicated tubs of lard with attention-deficit disorder.

 

Their dad's, too, of course.

In normal circumstances, what children need, especially in the first few years of their life, is their mother's love and meticulous care. Their dad's, too, of course. But especially their mom's (if you're unhappy with the fact that it's women who do most of the child-rearing in this world, take it up with the big guy upstairs and kindly leave me out of it).

 

It doesn't hurt to have the same level of personalized, full-time loving care continue on until school begins. But once the kid is two or three years old he or she should be sufficiently grown, emotionally speaking, to survive day care without too many problems if Mommy must get back to work. Whereas parking newborns -- sometimes as young as four months old -- at the day-care centre for up to 40 hours a week is one of the worst things a parent can do.

At any rate that's the thesis passionately argued by two Quebec authors, Jean-Francois Chicoine and Nathalie Collard, in a brand new book, Le Bebe et l'eau du bain: Comment la garderie change la vie de vos enfants (The Baby with the Bathwater: How Day Care Changes the Life of your Children). Dr. Chicoine, a Sainte-Justine Hospital pediatrician, is a media-savvy, outspoken advocate for children. Ms. Collard, who describes herself as a feminist, is an editorial writer with La Presse and a mother of two.

 

Part-way through the 500-odd-page book I'd already learned that a great deal more development goes on in very early childhood than I had thought possible. Which made it heart-wrenching to read about the stress of infants being constantly rushed about, and cared for by as many as six or seven different adults, and its effect on their emotional balance later in life.

I don't understand why people have children if it's only to put them away at the first available opportunity. They're cheating themselves and their children by doing so.

 

Well, say women offended by the book's thesis, it's necessary to do it because our family needs the money, or because women have to get back to work quickly or lose their place in the rat race and "disappear" from the professional scene, or because -- and this one I really don't understand -- some women say they need adult companionship so much they would go crazy "stuck" at home with the flesh of their flesh for more than a few weeks.

I sure hope so.

In all these cases, even where there is some plausibility, it all has to do with the parents' needs or convenience. The kids? Aw, they'll be all right. I sure hope so.

 

But isn't it a tad unfair to them to relegate their emotional well-being to an after-thought? Aren't they supposed to be the most important people in this business?

Forget politicians and their silly schemes. Forget what Canada wants. And please, please, think about the kids first. The real debate should be about them, not us.

 

 

FICHE TECHNIQUE " LE BÉBÉ ET L'EAU DU BAIN"

 

LE BÉBÉ ET L’EAU DU BAIN : COMMENT LA GARDERIE CHANGE LA VIE DE VOS ENFANTS —Jean-François Chicoine, pédiatre et Nathalie Collard, éditorialiste (Auteurs) —Rémi Baril (Direction de projet)  —Anne-Marie Villeneuve(Éditrice) —Éditions Québec Amérique, Montréal, Québec, Canada (Édition) 2006, ISBN : 978-2-7644-0479-9 (2-7644-0479-4), 513 pages

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