CHOICES IN CHILDCARE
I completely agree with Dr Penelope Leach (News, 3 September) that parents deserve a choice in where and how to take care of their young children, and this should not depend on the marital status or income level of the parent. To count those factors plays favourites among children, deprives them of equal benefit under the law, and interferes with lifestyle decisions that parents have a right to make on their own. It is true that legislators today were themselves usually not raised with a daycare experience, though the younger ones may have been. Legislators have more options for their own children because they have the salary accompanying their role, and we have many ironies where advocates for daycare in many countries are men, who never had to really deal with the issue of breastfeeding or pregnancy.
Dr Leach says, however, that we need to have in place a childcare system for emergencies. This sadly becomes an extended argument in some nations that we have to set up a wide system for every single child, 'just in case'. This is not very logical financially, since to fund an empty space unused is like buying food most people won't eat. It is wasteful. To have funding 'flow with' the child is best, and if we made this funding unconditional on marital status or income of parent, then the 'crisis' would be less likely to occur. When it did, and a child suddenly had to change childcare arrangements from sitter, dad, mum, grandma or nanny to a third-party daycare, the funding would automatically be there to pay for a spot. We would reduce waiting lists if funding went to all care styles, and so a spot would be as easy to find as a chair at a fast-food restaurant. We have only created a pseudo-crisis ourselves when we fund just one care style and then we ensure those who don't use it are poor.
I do not agree that third-party childcare is an essential service like healthcare, as Dr Leach seems to claim. What is essential is care of children - good care, dependable, loving, attentive - and this is as essential as food. But the need can be satisfied in many ways - sitter, dad, mum, nanny, grandma, daycare, homeschooler, work at home parent - just as the need for food can be met in many ways, like hamburger, sushi, chicken, vegan diet.
To fund only one kind of care, daycare, is as unfair as funding only one style of restaurant. For that restaurant to claim it is an essential service, better than any other restaurant, is what we are seeing if daycare claims that it alone deserves preferential state funding.
Daycare, which is childcare by strangers, is not like healthcare, either, because healthcare has a recognised expertise. You can't get heart surgery on any block, in any home, and by any loving adult. The expertise for taking care of your child, however, is in you. Any stranger knows your child less than you do, and though strangers may be very helpful, the criterion of who is competent to provide the care is quite different from the health care paradigm. Even in healthcare it is starting to be noticed that for emotional care and support, the family is actually not only a useful but a vital element of healing.
Funding all children directly works best. Daycarers can thrive and prove that they deserve customers if they need to compete in offering their services to the public, and get feedback, and go out of business if they are not what parents want. To fund them directly without public feedback puts us at risk
Beverley Smith, Calgary, Canada
PROBIOTIC DEBATE
With reference to 'Probiotics could help to prevent colds' (News, 6 August), your readers would do well to get an independent and reputable update on the usefulness of 'probiotic' and expensive nutraceuticals. This can be found at www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/jul/25/ probiotic-health-benefits.
We were amazed to find these very substances recommended for weight gain when sold to farmers for their animals! I wonder if Dr Gregory Leyer from Danisco has read that article?
Dave and Annie Wickens, Childspace childminders
Editor's note: the news story is a report of recent recognised research published in the Journal of Paediatrics
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