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The Daycare Debate: Does Sending A Child to Daycare Ruin Attachment?
10.9k Plays4 months ago
In this controversial episode, Jess and Scott dive into the heated debate around sending kids to daycare. They explore the "mommy wars" between stay-at-home and working parents - unpacking the guilt, judgement, and insecurities on both sides.
Jess offers a nuanced perspective, explaining how quality childcare providers can be an important part of a family’s "village” and how a strong parent-child attachment can be built whether a child is in childcare or at home.
Listeners will gain insights on:
- How to preserve attachment even when using childcare.
- The importance of finding caregivers who truly connect with your child.
- Ways to stay connected and present during the time you do have together.
This balanced discussion aims to ease parents' guilt and encourage more compassion, reminding us we're all just trying to do our best for our kids.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Initial Question
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Robot Unicorn. We are so glad that you are here. As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Controversy of Daycare on Instagram
00:00:18
Speaker
Today, I want to talk about something with you that has been controversial on our Instagram account. Okay. My question today is, is it wrong to send your kids to daycare?
00:00:29
Speaker
That's a very black and white question. ah Based on some of the responses, people think very strongly one way or the other. Right. I mean, the easiest. So do you feel the same way? It's a multi-part question. Yeah. So your question is, is it wrong to send your kids to daycare? Yeah. Is it going to ruin your attachment with them? Yeah. So I mean, the simple answer is no, there's obviously a much deeper answer that we're going to get into today. Podcast over. Yeah. Okay.
Personal Experience with Daycare
00:00:55
Speaker
Perfect. Wrap it up.
00:00:56
Speaker
Jordan, roll the credits. Yeah, roll the credits.
00:01:02
Speaker
towards our producer. But yeah, so the simple answer is it wrong to send your kids to daycare? Is it going to ruin your attachment? No. And then I guess dot dot dot and. So I feel like there's no, it's not as a blanket statement going to ruin your attachment. And no, it's not wrong to send your kids to daycare. I mean, clearly we've sent our kids to daycare and I've been very open about that. If I thought that was going to ruin the attachment that we have with our children.
00:01:32
Speaker
Which, if you've listened to any amount of podcasts or anything from me, you know that that's the most important thing in my life, is to have a solid relationship with my kids. Yeah, that's the most important thing for us. Like, I wouldn't do it. So, clearly I think that there is a piece that's okay. Yep. And I'm hoping today we can kind of talk about how to send your child to daycare in a way that's going to preserve that attachment and when it's okay and when to maybe pull back a little bit. Okay. Can we start from like, let's say the beginning and you explain like, why is it that people are getting so upset? Let's say on the Instagram post that you, I can't remember exactly what the post was about, but it was related to sending your child to
00:02:16
Speaker
daycare and people were upset with you for sending our kids to daycare because they were wondering like how can you say you're all about attachment and then you do that. I've never had so many angry messages at me. I didn't really share too many of them on my stories but I did a post.
00:02:33
Speaker
You can go see it. It's fairly recent. I think I did the post at the end of July if you want to look on the dates on my Instagram feed. And the post was saying that I'll never forget a conversation I had with a mom and I won't. I'll never forget this conversation. I was about to send our oldest daughter to daycare a couple days a week, three days a week, because I had to go back to work as a psychotherapist. And she was probably just over a year old.
00:02:57
Speaker
And I was feeling so guilty about it. And I was telling a mom because I didn't have a lot of mom friends at the time. So I was actually at a baby shower for another friend of mine. And I was telling someone there, oh man, I'm feeling so nervous. I have to send her to daycare for the first time, hoping to find some like solace or some sort of words of encouragement, mom to mom.
00:03:17
Speaker
And she looked at me and it was the tone that she said it, which was like, I would never send my kids to daycare. I want to be the one that raised them. I don't want daycare to raise my kids. So I would never do that. You don't want some random person raising. Is that the.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, that was the tone is like, I don't want some random person raising my kids. And then the conversation went more in depth, which is like, I chose to have these children. So I'm going to choose to be the ones who raise these children. And basically like, I don't understand how you could go back to work after having a kid. Right. And I just remember like, I felt so gutted by this person's comments and started wondering like, yeah, what am I doing? Like, am I going to totally ruin my attachment with my daughter?
Why Parents Choose Daycare
00:04:00
Speaker
And I had to go back to like the stuff I already knew. But when you have a comment like that and you're already in a really vulnerable place, it can just kind of take over your brain, right? So that's what I shared about on the Instagram feed. And I heard from so many moms who have heard the same comments. So a lot of parents are like, I've been there too. I feel so guilty. I struggle with this because either I need to work for my mental health or I need breaks for my mental wellbeing. I can't be a full time stay at home parent or financially I have to go back to work and I struggle with it. There's so many reasons why children go to childcare, right? Yeah. I feel like, like in Canada, I mean the government is trying to make it less expensive. So they're trying to get yeah certified daycares to be $10 a day.
00:04:44
Speaker
Which is amazing. And that's what we have. Yeah, we're so privileged here. But before this preschool that we have our child in, it was very expensive. It was very expensive. And I mean, just in general, everything is expensive. Right. And so there's so many reasons why you might send your child to childcare and why you might not. Maybe it's too expensive to send them.
00:05:03
Speaker
Maybe you have to send them because otherwise you can't make finances meet. Maybe your mental health is struck. Like there's so many reasons why you could send a child. So that's a separate topic we'll
Online Debate: Daycare vs Stay-at-Home
00:05:13
Speaker
talk about. But back to the story, I shared that on Instagram. I shared that I felt so guilty, but then I did end up sending her to childcare and we continued to keep a strong attachment. And then in that post, I shared a bunch of things that we did to help make sure that we still had that strong attachment.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I summarized the post basically saying, you're still raising your child. You are still the one raising your child, even if they go to childcare. And there's something beautiful about when they go to childcare, if they can form a loving and attached connection with the provider that they have there, then that can be part of your child's village. And it's another person to love and to care for your child. It doesn't mean they're raising them, but it does mean that they're part of their village. And that's really beautiful. And that can be okay for kids too.
00:05:58
Speaker
So that was kind of the premise of the post that caused all this controversy and why we're talking about it now. Yep. So what are some of the comments that you received or DMS you received from people? So I did the post, a lot of parents being like, yeah, I get it. I also send my child to childcare, like a lot of positive yeah stuff. The negative stuff was just, I can't believe that you send your child to childcare. I thought that you were an attachment parent. I don't understand how you could A, teach this stuff and B,
00:06:25
Speaker
have your own kids and have three of them and not choose to be the one that raises them. I don't believe that sending your child to childcare is okay. Children need to be with their mother at all times. Haven't you heard that like you're the mom. So like you should be the one for the first three years who's with your child as many hours a day as possible. Don't you feel like you're kind of leading people on if you are running a page about parenting, but you're not a stay at home mom.
00:06:52
Speaker
Like I received a lot of really challenging feedback, like people challenging me, which I don't mind. I'm okay with people challenging me, but then there was the feedback. Those like, you should be ashamed of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. So that always comes with every post, but yeah, I get.
00:07:08
Speaker
I'd say this post had more than probably ever. Like I don't think I've ever received that amount of feedback on a post and like privately. I mean, personally, I think people who respond that way just have a very limited view of life.
Financial Implications of Parenting Choices
00:07:22
Speaker
They're likely, I don't know. They're not thinking, getting curious about like, why would we send kids to childcare? They're certainly not very curious people. I find comments like that kind of dumb to be honest, just because like, let's say in Canada, That's kind of a privileged thing to say. I'm gonna be a stay-at-home parent. It's not nearly as common as it used to be because things are just... everything is expensive here, so it's... it's pretty hard to do too much.
00:07:48
Speaker
Well, people would say, and I've seen this all over Instagram lately, there's this trending thing to make a real, like I could have this, but instead I chose to be a stay at home mom. And so like stay at home moms who have their own Instagram accounts will post, like I could have a house at the pool, but instead I chose to be a stay at home mom.
00:08:09
Speaker
To me that's stupid because I love our different responses. You're just immediately angry. Well, yeah, because it's it's ridiculous because I mean, we don't even own a house. Yeah, we own two vehicles that are both over a decade old. It's not like we're going out and buying all kinds of crazy stuff. The most crazy thing that we own is probably my 3D printer.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah. It's the biggest expense that we have. That's probably, well, it's not even that big of an expense, but it was probably the most crazy thing that we have. We don't have a lot of stuff, but it's still things are expensive. So unless you're going to move into the middle of nowhere and like maybe certain parts of the world, that's it's possible. But I just, to me, those kinds of comments are stupid. Those kind of TikTok or reels or whatever. Those are all clickbait because that's not reality for many people, at least.
00:08:55
Speaker
And I know, I know a few amazing stay-at-home moms, like some of my good friends. And I know that there's different sacrifice that they've made in order to live a life that is their value system, right? So a lot of the stay-at-home moms that I know, their partners work ton of hours, like to make up for their lost income, right? Like, so. That probably would have been what happened to us. Like I would have been then traveling, basically gone 50% of the year. We did that when I was barely working, right? ye There were seasons in our marriage, and I said this on the feed too, there were seasons in our marriage where, like probably three years total, where I didn't really work. Like I was either home with the kids, maybe I did a little bit of work online, but not much. I was pretty much a stay-at-home mom. I was full-time with the children for three years of the seven that we've been parenting. ye And in those three years, in order to make ends meet and financially make it work, you had to work a ton of extra hours.
00:09:48
Speaker
And that was the sacrifice that we made. Like not even just working extra hours. We were traveling. Gone. Like I wasn't home at the end of the day. I would be gone. And so that was the sacrifice that we made in those years for us to be home. And it just, that's what worked in that season of life. yeah And that's what we had to do in that season of life. And I have friends that are stay-at-home moms and that's a similar story for them. Their partner works a lot of hours and they stay at home. That's not necessarily wrong. There's nothing wrong with it. But I just think it go again, like I feel like every episode that we have our discussion, the conversation kind of goes back to that where the hashtag parenting experts yeah and experts in general, I think,
00:10:25
Speaker
anytime something is black and white, you usually aren't thinking about that situation correctly. Yeah. So I think the debate becomes stay at home mom versus daycare mom. Like that's the, that's the debate that's going on online. And that's Taylor's oldest time. Like that was happening seven years ago when I went back to work for the first time after having our oldest daughter. And already then like Instagram wasn't really around, but it was more like Facebook then. And on Facebook, on all the the Facebook group chains, there would just be arguments between stay-at-home moms and daycare moms. And I just personally have such an issue with that because I have so many moms who are incredible stay-at-home moms. why is that i like Why is that even a debate? i don't i just like Is it that some people think if you are a working mother,
00:11:11
Speaker
Then you have like what I had when I was working and you were staying at home, I'd have like 45 minutes with the kids and they'd be in bed if I was even home on time. Yeah. So is that the concern that they think if you're a working parent, then you're not really parenting because you're not even really home at all. Yeah, I definitely received those types of comments. Like, well, you can't really complain about parenting if you're a working parent because you're barely with your kids. And again, it's black and white. I think at the deeper level, so we can talk about all the things and, and then parents who send their kids to daycare, there's also shaming the other way towards stay at home moms. So there's, yeah well, like either direction is just shaming both ways. And I agree that also.
00:11:52
Speaker
We should never shame a stay-at-home mom for wanting to stay home and making that work. Like, I think that's incredible if you can do that. I think on both sides, we're both good parents, and I think we we all, for the most part, want to do what's best for our kids, and that looks different in different seasons of life, different times, and what's best for our family looks different. But I think at the core of why these, like,
00:12:14
Speaker
mommy wars happen. I feel like there's our own internalized like feelings of shame, feelings of not being seen, feelings of not feeling that sense of togetherness and community. And so if I'm feeling so insecure within myself of my own decision to go back to work, let's say, and I'm feeling insecure about sending my child to daycare,
00:12:35
Speaker
instead of kind of reflecting on that and healing that concern that I have going on, I could just come and attack a stay-at-home mom and be like, well, your kid's not getting socialization and your kid's not getting this and this and this. But really, it has more to do with my own insecurity. And I think the stay-at-home mom, who's shaming a daycare mom, you know, like, well, I want to be the one who raises my kids and I want to be this and this and this, it has more to do with maybe their own values and insecurities that they have.
00:13:00
Speaker
Is it more of like a self-validation? Yeah, like I'm doing this. I gave up my career for this. So this has to be the best way because I gave up everything to be a stay-at-home mom. You know what I mean? It's kind of like how, I don't know how true this is, but I heard that car commercials are meant actually for the owners of the cars already to validate the fact that they bought that vehicle.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. So it's like validating them, helping them know that they made the right decision. Yeah. Someone fact check me on that one. Yeah. I truly think that that's what's going on. Like when we we're attacking each other versus just tuning in with ourselves, it's so hard to reflect on why am I so triggered by this conversation? But the conversation is about who's raising our children. And so, of course, we're all going to be activated. Like, I even noticed you, like, when I started talking about those shaming comments, like, you're right away getting activated. Like, yeah you want to defend our choice, right? It's not even that I want to defend our choice. It's that I wish, in general, people, what is that quote that was in Ted Lasso from Walt Whitman? It's like, be curious, not judgmental. Yeah.
Encouraging Curiosity over Judgment
00:14:06
Speaker
Or yours is get curious. Like, yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
Why can't people just be a little more curious and less judgmental? Because I find the judgmental comments just very annoying. Yeah, you get so easily frustrated by that. Yeah. It comes from a clearly a lack of understanding of any situation. Yeah. That people would make those comments.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it really comes from their own triggers. If I send my kids to daycare and I make a comment to stay-at-home mom, like well, daycare is way better than being home with them because then they get socialization, they get to learn new things, I could never teach them this, blah, blah, and I start shaming a stay-at-home mom for staying at home. That's probably because I want to defend my reasons for sending my child to daycare and feel good about my decision.
00:14:48
Speaker
If I am a stay-at-home mom and I'm saying I want to be the one that raises them and I don't want anyone else raising my kids and I think when you send them to daycare like you're basically wiping your hands of parenting, if I say that as a stay-at-home mom has more to do with my own like I'm with my kids 24 hours a day every single day. This is the hardest work. I want you to see that.
00:15:08
Speaker
And maybe I've given up my job or friendships or different alone time in order to do this. So it needs to be important. And instead of us just reflecting on why we feel the way we do and are we living aligned with our values or not, we start attacking other people. And that is the culture online. Like you look at Reddit threads and you look at, I don't look at Reddit threads anymore because the... Yeah. Some people don't love you very much. They don't love me very much on there. And I did it twice and it was really, really hurtful. So I decided to stop looking at Reddit threads or Facebook groups. And we just, there's these mommy wars, like we shame each other, but really it just comes internally and we got to tune in with ourselves. And I think when it comes to the daycare conversation, when at least started sending our child to daycare for the first time, I also was really activated by the whole thing because I hadn't been tuning in with myself.
00:15:57
Speaker
Like, I hadn't been asking myself the question, how am I going to stay connected with her when we're apart? How do I truly feel about sending her to daycare a couple of days a week? Is this my values? Like, does this align with who I want to be as a parent? Like, I hadn't done that kind of critical reflection. I was just sending her because I had to go back to work because I i needed to.
00:16:16
Speaker
So I think when you can slow yourself down a little bit and start pausing, you might find out some more things about yourself. And maybe the question isn't so much like, is daycare right or wrong or yes or no, or should everyone send their kids to daycare? It's like, tune in with you. What's your values? What's your family's values? What works for you? And I think we need to do a lot more of that than blanket statements about whether or not it's the right fit.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, right. So I guess my question next is in the ideal world, like in an ideal situation, is being a stay at home parent better than sending your child to childcare?
00:16:53
Speaker
Again, it's, I just feel like that's really hard to answer because of course, let's say we have this ideal world where mom or dad is very mentally well. They're financially stable. They have maybe had a good childhood and they have all the tools that they need to take care of their baby so they can be calm and regulated for them. They have the space that they need, the environment's correct. All of these things, they have a village of support. So I think that's key. Like a lot of times now, daycare is our paid village. We don't have grandparents nearby. We don't have family members that can help us out. So an ideal world, yeah, a parent has a village. They have grandparents that can come and take care of the kids. They have aunts and uncles that will pour love into the children. Sure. And that ideal world, it's great to be home with your children.
00:17:38
Speaker
We can't underestimate the power of having a parent with you who is attached and attuned to your needs and shows up for you. That's incredible. like That's amazing. But I would say in so many cases, we don't have that ideal setup.
Daycare as a Modern Support System
00:17:53
Speaker
And that's why we need childcare a lot of the time. For example, if a mom's not mentally well and she doesn't have a village around her, which is so often the case, and we know parenting in the early years, say you have a 15 month old, It's all day every day. Like often they wake up at night. It's a 24 seven responsibility. And if that mom is feeling so overwhelmed and let's say she's not even going back to work when she has another baby on the way or something. yeah And she's like, you know what? I have to send my child to daycare two, three days a week, even even five days a week so that I can get that break so I can be mentally well to help them. I think that's beautiful. That's your village. Daycare can be part of your village.
00:18:34
Speaker
And that's why I really have an issue with saying a blanket statement either way. And I've seen quote unquote researchers talking about daycare and talking about how the presence of a parent and how that's the most important in the first three years. And we cannot deny that the first three, five years of parenting are incredibly important for a child long-term. That is true. A child in the first five years of parenting needs to know their parent's going to show up for them. They need attunement. They need attachment. They need relationship. And this can still be done while having other people help take care of your kids. I think that's the important piece. Right. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I i think it does.
00:19:14
Speaker
I just, I really struggled with this one and I had a lot of people sending me again, quote unquote research articles saying that it's bad to send your kids to daycare. And I think we have to talk about the quality of childcare and who we're sending our kids to. I do think that that's a really important piece of this conversation. But basically what our children need to know is in these early years is do I have someone to trust that's going to take care of for my needs and tune in with them in these early years.
00:19:39
Speaker
And sometimes part of taking care of your child's needs and tuning in with them is having other people come and help you. Like sometimes that's part of it. I know, and especially let's say when I had the three children, like when I just had our third baby, I've talked openly about how hard that experience was for me and I was full-time home with them.
00:19:55
Speaker
and also trying to work, but I was full-time home with all three kids and it was so impossibly hard to take care of all three of them and do all the other things that I had to do with zero help that I was yelling more, I wasn't regulated, I had a really hard time waking up in the night, I wasn't the parent I wanted to be, I was constantly rage cleaning the house, I wasn't a happy mom and then we got some help and I remember like everything changed. We had paid help to come help take care of our baby and our older kids. who our children developed this beautiful relationship with. And she took care of our baby at the time when I had to go into work or something had to happen. And it could not have changed our lives in a better way. Everything changed because I had that help. yeah I was able to show up. I was able to be a more present mom. I stopped yelling at the kids. I felt calmer in my body. I could handle the night wakings because I paid someone to help me with the kids.
00:20:51
Speaker
and as an addition our daughter still has the most beautiful relationship with this person and that has never taken away from my attachment with our daughter. Yeah and I think that's partially because one of our biggest values is spending time with the kids. Yeah. So like we'll say no to so many other things so that we can go out for breakfast on a Saturday or something like that or go on a hike with them or like Yeah, when we get home from a day of work, it's like, okay, it's time for the kids, yeahp right? We're there, we're present with them. Sure, someone else is mad at me the other day because I said bedtime takes like close to two hours with three children. But I was like, I'm okay with bedtime taking close to two hours with three children because that's my time of day, it just pour into them. yeah And I have the capacity to do so. When I was a full-time stay-at-home parent, and this is for me personally, it took everything out of me.
00:21:38
Speaker
yeah i Basically you like here, here you go. Like you would come home and I'd be like, I can't. I didn't have the capacity to do bedtime the way I do it now. I was yelling more. I was frustrated more. And that's for me personally. And that's why I say like in an ideal scenario, if you are a stay-at-home parent and you have support and you have help.
00:21:56
Speaker
Like, it can be beautiful and it can work super, super well for you, but this is just our story. Having help has really helped. Yeah, I feel like I, like truthfully, I don't think I have any of that pressure. In fact, like the pressure to stay at home or any of that, which obviously, like I think that's so societal. Yeah. I mean, it was the norm for a long time, right?
00:22:17
Speaker
yeah for men to go to work and they had to be the ones that went out. The wives stayed home with the kids and that's kind of like the societal norm, but I think that's changed significantly over the past few decades, really. yeah So it's something that will probably have to be a little learned as well. like And I think people will reference decades ago, right? And they'll say, well, all moms stayed home with their kids. So where have we gone as a society where we don't value the role of a parent?
00:22:44
Speaker
And to be honest, what I say to that is I looked at what the people, let's say, are my grandparents immigrated to Canada in the fifties or my great grandparents and my grandparents did. And a farm that was many acres was like a couple thousand dollars.
00:23:02
Speaker
like And if you were to determine like today's value of that, it's still not even remotely close to what you have to pay to even just own a small house. It's not even close. So to have like a huge property, close to 100 acres for a few thousand dollars, and like have all this help to start up a farm, instead of comparing things that happened then,
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah. To now, just to have a small house, it's many times what they paid for a large working farm. Yeah, exactly. And I have two points to that. One thing I keep seeing is like, I forgot going to Disney so it can be a stay-at-home mom. And like, that's another one of those types of reels that keeps coming up, but it's not about that. Like, you can- That's so stupid.
00:23:51
Speaker
You can forego Disney and avocado toast or whatever, Starbucks. But the fact of the matter is, that's still a really privileged statement because that's still saying that the other partner makes enough that you can afford life. yeah And that is just simply not the case for a lot of families who just live a very simple life. They don't go on luxury vacations and they still need two incomes.
00:24:15
Speaker
But what I want to say for parents who feel guilty about sending their kids to daycare or not, or are you're a stay-at-home parent and you're just interested in this conversation, I think the way that we parented too has changed so much. I see people really glamorize parenting, let's say 50 years ago, where yeah, everyone's a stay-at-home parent. parent, but okay, A, maybe they have villages, like all their sisters, they have six siblings and they're all stay-at-home parents, so they have each other, but B, let's think about the way that we've disciplined our children and the way that we now intentionally show up for our children in the time we have with them and how that's changed.
Comparing Past and Modern Parenting
00:24:49
Speaker
So you might have a parent who sure they were stay at home parent, but were they attuned with their children's needs? Were they showing up for them? Were they getting curious about their behavior? Were they able to meet whatever kind of emotional needs? Like maybe some, maybe some for sure. For sure. There were some parents that were doing that, but the norm even of like how children were disciplined, how they were seen, AKA, they weren't seen, you know, be seen and not heard.
00:25:12
Speaker
You know, that that type of mentality was really strong. Be obedient to your parents. We had strap, that was a form of discipline, right? Like the way that children were dealt with was like a lot of the time, not always, inconveniences, they're bad, you know, be here, or I'm gonna have a lot of children so they can help me work around the house. Now, sure, we have a village of people around us supporting our children. Part of that village can be daycare. And in the time that we have with our kids, at least parents that are listening to this podcast, were So much more intentional with that. We're tuning in with them. We're like, Oh, you have nightmares at night. Here, let's do a worry toolkit about your nightmares and let's get to the root of your worry. Worry is your friend. You know, we're not like, Oh, don't bother me at night. Here you go. Like we are showing up for our kids in such a unique way that previous generations haven't done. And and that is hard work.
00:26:04
Speaker
And I think we need to give ourselves some credit for that too. And I think that's part of how we can still have that attached relationship even when they have other caregivers during the day while we're at work. like We're tuning in with our kids in such a unique way. Stay at home moms and working parents are both doing that right now. And I think it's absolutely beautiful.
00:26:20
Speaker
We just need to stop attacking each other. Yeah. I just, I wish my dream would be that we would stop attacking each other. And I feel like I can say that too, because I've got it on both ends. I got it when I was a stay at home parent and I heard from people like, Oh, you're not going to send them to daycare. How could you do that? I could never be home all day. Like I heard those comments yeah and by the way, kids aren't going to socialize, kids aren't going to socialize. By the way, I loved being a stay at home parent for the most part until it got really, really, really hard. And I needed to have support, you know, but in the early years when I just had one kid at home, it worked for me. And then there were seasons where it didn't work for me. And that's when we got help. And then I've got it from being a parent that sends our kids to daycare. Like, how could you do that? I thought you wanted to raise your own kid.
00:27:00
Speaker
So I feel like I'm coming at the mommy wars with so much compassion on both sides because I've heard it on both sides. I've been both. And I just feel like if we can really truly see each other as parents, that we're all in this journey together. And one parent sending their kids a day here does not threaten you being a stay-at-home mom. Like we can all see each other and have respect. I just feel like the world would be such a more beautiful place. Maybe this is just my dream. It's a gentle parents, the world. The utopia. Yeah.
00:27:28
Speaker
But I do want to talk before we wrap up this episode about some practical tools that parents can kind of take away because the one thing that we haven't talked about yet is the importance of the quality of daycare. And I do want to talk about that. Yeah. I feel like we've been lucky with our girls. We've found amazing preschools and daycares. Yeah. And that's a privilege too, right? Because sometimes it can be really hard to find good childcare. Well, even in general, I mean, in Ontario, Canada, there's not enough childcare. Yeah, childcare.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I think the important thing to know is that when we're talking about some of the research that's been done on kids who've gone to daycare and like long-term outcomes, when they have the best long-term outcomes is they have a caregiver who they can trust and is tuning in with them in the absence of their parent.
00:28:17
Speaker
whether that's a paid daycare teacher, a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a nanny, whoever it is that's taking care of them. The child needs to know in these early years, it's essential that they know someone is tuning in with me and trying to help my needs get met. And they need that when they go to childcare too. So that's what I'd really be searching for and what we have searched for in teachers. I love Gordon Neufeld says this and he's like, our teachers,
00:28:43
Speaker
childcare workers in the early years should be seen as honorary family members. Like what if we saw them as honorary aunts and uncles to our children and we talked about them as if they were family, we colored pictures for them when we were at home, we would come in and be like, Oh, you'll never guess what so what she did this weekend. She did this and this. You'll talk positively about the child in front of that teacher. Those are going to be the things that help your child also see that as an extension of their village versus or just sending them to school and they don't know who to turn to in your absence. A child needs to know who to turn to when their parents not there.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. That's essential. And I think that's the piece that's often missing from the daycare conversation is who's in charge. Your child needs to know if they need to look around the room and their eyes need to land on someone. And like, let's say our daughter, when she went to kindergarten, her teacher is absolutely incredible, her kindergarten teacher. And when she fell or stubbed her toe or something went wrong, she would look around the room and see her teacher and run to her for a hug.
00:29:43
Speaker
And that's what our children need when they're at school. So who are they turning to? Sounds good. You don't have comments on that? I don't have comments. I've never seen it. I agree. So I would say that's the main thing. And I would tune in with yourself too, because like there's a a lot of incredible daycares out there. There's also some that aren't so great. and I think it's also okay for you to be like, you know what, this is not a match. Like this is not working. I'm going to find someone else. I want parents to be able to tune in with their own instincts because I want you to be able to trust who's caring for your child when you're not there. yeah That's also really going to help you rest during the day when you're at work. I also think like for us again in Canada, you have one year maternity leave. You didn't take that on your third daughter, but you get one year and then after that you find like a daycare or something like that. But in like I know in the US they have 12 weeks unpaid, which is six weeks, 12 weeks. Yeah, which is crazy. But then you still have kind of an infant that you're
00:30:38
Speaker
you have a brand new baby that you're passing off. I would imagine, I don't know for a fact, but I would imagine it's even more difficult for them to find childcare and on top of that really good childcare. And that's absolutely where the system fails moms and babies and families in general. And we have to say that too, right? Like, this is not perfect in Canada, but I would say it's still significantly better than what our American counterparts. You can take 18 months off, right? Like that's wild. Yeah, you can take up to 18 months. Yeah, exactly. You can take 18 months off and then send your child. But when you have to send a six-week-old child off, that's really difficult. And I think that that's where a lot of the moms come in, like, I could never do that, right? And I understand that because in those, like, those early, early years, like, all your body wants is to be with your baby. And it makes so much sense. And isn't, like, 12 weeks here, like, basically just healed from the birthing experience? just Yeah, you're just... out of the fourth trimester like you're just out of the fourth trimester so of course you're not going to want to be away from your baby and i think if that's what your body's saying like i want to be with my baby and you can make it work to be home like by all means stay home with your child as long as you can but if you can't like for all the reasons that we've talked about and you have to get help try and see how you can find someone who's going to
00:31:47
Speaker
be able to provide your child with that love, the snuggles, the closeness, all of those things that they do require in those early years. And that's essential and and children need that. And I don't want to skip over that piece. by And that's why I said at the beginning, you're like, is it okay to send your kids to daycare? It's that yes and. Like, yes, it's okay to send your kids to daycare and who's caring for them when you're not there. We do need to tune in with that. And how are you caring for them when you're in their presence? Yeah. And how do you care for them when you're back with them? How do you, and this is something I always say, and like I say it in my separation anxiety course, how are you delighting in their reunion?
Balancing Work and Daycare
00:32:24
Speaker
Right? It's like when you see your child after a day apart, how are you putting your phone away, looking your child in the eyes, having open arms, greeting them, asking them about their day. Okay. They don't want to tell you about their day. That's fine. Like you're still tuning in. You're saying, Oh, what's the time you laughed today? What's the time that felt difficult today? You're having family meals together.
00:32:43
Speaker
Not to put so much pressure on your plate either. I don't want parents to listen to this and be like, oh my goodness, it's so many things I have to do. But I do think we don't want to dismiss sometimes in these things that we talk about. It's like, well, just don't feel guilty. It's fine. But again, it's tuning in with, well, how are we meeting that need of the child and meeting your own need as a parent for closeness with your child when you are with them? I think that's really important as well.
00:33:06
Speaker
There's a lot of factors. Like, is it okay to send your child to daycare? Yes, of course. Like, sometimes we need to. And who's taking care of them when you're not there? And how do you care for them when you are there? Like, there's just so many factors. And I just, I hope this conversation will not be as black and white as other conversations that you've heard. And I hope it will give you some relief and some compassion because these decisions are hard to make. And like, I get it.
00:33:32
Speaker
It's really hard and it's hard to transition to you don't have this because you've always been a working parent. But it's hard to transition from being a stay-at-home parent to a working parent. Right. Like there's been lots of times where I've been like, you know, I wish I was still home with them full time. Yeah. But I mean, that's never been an option for me anyway, really. Yeah. You've never had that option. Yeah. And you've never been conditioned to feel like you have to do that. Right. Right. Like, yeah, it's more the opposite if you were to say, I'm a stay-at-home dad. I want to be a stay-at-home dad. Yeah.
00:34:02
Speaker
that would be probably more frowned upon. Yeah. Like there's times where I'm like, Oh man, it would be so nice to still be home with them. But that's not the season that we're in right now. And that's okay. I still show up for them in a million ways and they're still so attached to us. We have beautiful relationships with all three kids and there'll be things that we've done that will not be great that I'm sure they'll get mad at us for, but I i can rest knowing that we still have these beautiful relationships. We are a thousand percent the one still parenting them. Yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker
School is a great addition to our village, but they're not the ones raising our kids. We're the ones teaching them values. We're the ones tuning in with them. We're the ones in those unseen moments at 3 a.m. where they're kicking us in the spinal cord and we're like falling off the bed, right? Like there's still so many hours in the day that we are with these children showing up for them, meeting every single one of their needs and more.
00:35:00
Speaker
And I just also want to remind you that if you are a parent who sends your child to daycare, like you're still doing that work and it's important. And if you stay at home mom or parent and you're listening to this, like the work you're doing is incredibly important as well. Like we're all just doing good work. So let's love on each other a little bit more and stop fighting.
00:35:21
Speaker
yeah Stop this war. Stop this war. And see that we're all just doing our best. And that's all I got for today. Sounds good. We'll see what the people, what you to think. I really want your feedback. Send us a DM on Robot Unicorn. Let us know. Let us know because I actually feel like this one might need a follow up. Like I feel like there's going to be questions. There's going to be. Yeah. And we could do that too. Yeah. So I think this, this episode might need a follow up. We should put an email in the show notes that people, if they want to email our. Do you want to email us? Yeah.
00:35:52
Speaker
We would love to get an email from you. Email is old fashioned, isn't it? Do people still do that? I don't know. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, we'll put the email in the show notes and then email us and just know that Scott asked me probably 15 times a day if I've heard from anyone how they're liking the podcast, what they're saying. So like we genuinely want to know. Like
Listener Feedback and Engagement
00:36:10
Speaker
we're reading your messages. Do you have any constructive feedback? We're always open to hearing that too. We're reading your constructive feedback. We want to know. So please, yeah, let us know. And maybe we'll do a follow up on this one.
00:36:21
Speaker
Sounds good. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for listening. Talk soon.
00:36:29
Speaker
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We are glad that you are here. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review. Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all. A five star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.