Aug 22, 2014

Daycare Postscript

One of Rebbetzin Feige's daughters, a working mother, wrote an article about the ins and outs of daycare and concluded by reassuring parents that their children will turn out fine despite being sent to daycare.  She wrote that her parents traveled for speaking engagements and she turned out just fine.

Someone wrote a letter to the editor asking whether mother and daughter disagreed on this topic.  The daughter responded and said she wasn't actually in daycare.  When her parents were away, which was not on a daily basis, she was under the care of a dear family friend who was like a surrogate grandmother.

She said, "My mother has counseled scores of women who, as a result of being a breadwinner, have no energy for homemaking and mothering and are struggling to be functioning wives.  I can personally attest to the struggle and strain caused by attempting to simultaneously balance one's career and motherhood.  None of us [Rebbetzin Twerski or her daughter] believes that sending your children to daycare will turn them into dysfunctional adults, but it is inarguable that children who are raised by other people, in conjunction with a mother who is distracted, barely there, and stressed out, are likely to reflect those limitations.

"My mother's article was about the ideal and mine was an exploration of the daycare system for when the ideal is not an option."

***
I wonder how "likely to reflect those limitations" manifests.  She and her mother don't think the daycare kids will become dysfunctional adults, but ... but what? Something is "inarguable" but she does not spell it out.  What limitations will these children have and why is she afraid to spell it out? Also, living in Israel, the daughter is in a society where daycare is considered the norm.  Children are sent to the metapelet and to the ma'on from infancy and then to gan.  Raising your own children is not considered the ideal.

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