Childcare and Women's Health
Me Search
Research That Hits Home
Self-help for Supermoms
Both here at Daycare and Development and in my endeavors at work, I spend a lot of time thinking about childcare. It’s not an obvious preoccupation for someone trained as a pediatric physical therapist. So what gives?
I joke with people that I got interested in childcare as a form of self-help. I was blessed with two amazing kids in rapid succession just as my career really started taking off. As I look back now, I’m not even sure how I got through my son’s first year of life while simultaneously taking so much Tylenol PM (he was a really bad sleeper), and thinking of my daughter’s first years just makes my chest tighten. Not, of course, when I think of her or of our time together, but when I think of what I put myself through trying to be the best mom, best wife, best housekeeper (why?) and best worker.
I turned to research for guidance after approximately the ten google-zillionth time leaving my son sobbing at daycare in the morning. Separating every day wasn’t any easier for me than it was for them. One day, I got to work and opened up my computer. I went straight to PubMed, a research database, and started reading. PubMed was my crystal ball and I begged it to show me what this whole “daycare thing” was doing to my kids. I began reading as a mother, and I kept reading as a teacher, physical therapist, and researcher.
Photo by Amy Humphries on Unsplash
The Good News…and The Not So Good News
Here’s what research has to say: daycare, especially high quality daycare, is actually quite good for kids. It prepares them for school and teaches them social skills, though it is slightly more stressful for boys than it is for girls and both sexes display slightly more aggressive behavior than those who stay home before kindergarten (though this data is also quite old now). Daycare can also provide parents who are in the throes of work and family with an instant social network of people going through similar struggles. In large part, though, daycare isn’t working particularly well for women, and that is mostly true for the women who work there. But let’s backtrack a little.
My first important discovery was that women the world over were feeling drawn and quartered just like me. Globally, women were being pulled apart by the myriad demands of parenting and working. Often, the people suffering most weren’t employers or children or partners, but the women themselves. To make time for everything, women were giving up things they needed: sleep, exercise, time, leisure. On top of it, they felt worried about their children and guilty about their choices. (Check, check, check) Interestingly, when women received help to manage it all, they typically received it from paid help or other relatives, not their spouses, even in notoriously progressive countries like Denmark.
Professional women were in a bind because instead of downshifting on parenting, they were actually driving harder, recognizing that their efforts in “cultivating” their kids had payoffs: maternal engagement and education—like quality of childcare—is predictive of outcomes like academic success for kids. Lower income women, especially those without family support, were suffering too. Without anyone else to rely on and no money to pay for help, they were (and are) just…surviving.
A classic example of such a woman? Your local daycare provider. The majority of childcare providers are women. Many are mothers and many are living in poverty. For some perspective, median pay for a childcare professional in 2016 was $21,173. In 2018, the poverty line for a family of two was $16,460 and for three people was $20,780. That’s not much margin when the car breaks down or your child gets a serious illness. Additionally, childcare providers have physically and emotionally demanding jobs and face risk of injury due to the physical nature of their work, while doing some of the most important work in society: providing the educational foundation of the next generation.
And speaking of that young society…As a physical therapist, a big part of my interest in childcare is how it impacts health and, specifically, physical activity. But here’s something to think about: Some research indicates that children who start daycare before the age of six months old and who spend long hours in daycare have higher rates of obesity and..wait for it…and as early as the daycare years, girls start to show a drop-off in their rates of physical activity.
Crystal Ball to Snow Globe
The good news is that change is happening, and for the better. Nationally and internationally, governmental, nonprofit, and academic organizations have begun to recognize the potential of intervention in the childcare environment. Clearly, though, there is more work to be done.
What “Me Search” has revealed to me is that childcare isn’t only about children. Childcare is also about women’s health—physical, emotional, mental, and financial. Thus far, this discussion has focused on non-familial childcare, but the story isn’t really that different when we look at children cared for by relatives or by their own mothers at home. Stay-at-home moms (SAHMs) often work around the clock to enable a partner to be successful working outside the home, and both efforts keep the family financially solvent. SAHMs typically don’t have holidays or days off, and they may have little in the way of retirement savings, despite the fact that one source valued their contributions to the average family at over $100,000 per year. The work of raising children—no matter how it’s sliced—is still largely the work of women.
Childcare of any variety is a snow globe of our culture, a tiny vision of what we value and what we don’t. Collectively, I believe we need to place higher value on children, their education, the skill it requires to raise little humans, and the experts who do it.
This snow globe needs some shaking up.
Want to Know More?
The articles below informed the post above.
PA Habits
Adamo KB, Wilson S, Harvey AL, et al. Does intervening in childcare settings impact fundamental movement skill development? Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2016;48(5):926-932. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000838 [doi].
Time in Childcare and Obesity
Benjamin Neelon SE, Taveras EM, Østbye T, Gillman MW. Preventing Obesity in Infants and Toddlers in Child Care: Results from a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. Maternal and Child Health Journal. 2014;18:1246-1257.
Childcare and Girls
Soini A, Villberg J, Sääkslahti A, et al. Directly Observed Physical Activity among 3-Year-Olds in Finnish Childcare. International Journal of Early Childhood. 2014;46:253-269.
Vanderloo LM, Tucker P, Johnson AM, Holmes JD. Physical activity among preschoolers during indoor and outdoor childcare play periods. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 2013;38:1173-1175.
Venetsanou F, Kambas A. Motor proficiency in young children: A closer look at potential gender differences. SAGE Open. 2016;6(1):215824401562622.
Childcare and Moms
Walsh D. High child care costs keeping women out of the labor pool. Crain's Detroit Business. ; Detroit 33.10 (Mar 6, 2017): 1.
Craig L, Mullan K. Lone and partnered mothers' childcare time within context in four countries. European Sociological Review. 2012;28(4):512-526.
Craig L, Mullan K. How mothers and fathers share childcare: A cross-national time-use comparison. Am Sociol Rev. 2011;76(6):834-861.
Fothergill A. Managing childcare: The experiences of mothers and childcare Workers. Sociological Inquiry. 2013;83(3): 421-447. doi: 10.1111/soin.12011.
Childcare and Teachers
Cumming T. Early childhood educators’ well-being: An updated review of the literature. Early Childhood Education Journal. 2017; 2016;45(5):583-593.
Labaj A, Diesbourg T, Dumas G, Plamondon A, Mercheri H, Larue C. Posture and lifting exposures for daycare workers. Int J Ind Ergonomics. 2016;54:83-92.
Royer N, Moreau C. A survey of canadian early childhood educators’ psychological wellbeing at work. Early Childhood Education Journal. 2016; 2015;44(2):135-146.
Wagner SL, Forer B, Cepeda IL, et al. Perceived stress and canadian early childcare educators. Child & Youth Care Forum. 2013;42(1):53-70.
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