REALity – Volume XXXIV Issue No.12 December 2015
Everybody knows that babies and toddlers are better cared for at home by their mothers. But what about mothers who have to work with no family member to help them out? How then, can their childcare problem be solved?
This problem can be better understood by comparing Finland’s approach to childcare to that of Sweden. Finland provides financial support to parents, either through a home care allowance, or alternatively, by a subsidized childcare system. About half of Finnish parents chose the home care allowance. This may explain why Finland is consistently one of the top nations in education in Europe.
On the other hand, Sweden provides no choice – only a government subsidized childcare system i.e. institutional childcare. A full 92% of all children in Sweden, aged 18 months to five years, are in daycare, which costs the government $20,000 annually per child. Swedish taxes are among the highest in the world, and the tax system is designed to make both parents seek employment in the paid workforce.
Providing only this one option to parents in Sweden may be contributing to long term harm to children. In 2007, a Swedish study found that parenting ability decreased with the amount of time children spend in daycare. According to Jonas Himmelstrand, a Swedish business consultant and founder of the Swedish Mireja Institute, Sweden has some of the worst behaviour and discipline problems in European schools, due to the decreasing psychological health of its youth. Girls, aged 15 to 19, have experienced a 30% increase in mental health problems. Academic performance in Sweden has plummeted. This is ironic since childcare is supposed to make children academic achievers. Tragically, if their children are kept for long hours in childcare, parents in Sweden do not develop the necessary confidence to raise their children. Their parental instincts decrease and they lack the ability to set limits and sense their children’s needs, according to Mr. Himmelstrand. Children and parents become alienated, since the children do not develop a psychological attachment to their parents, but instead, because they are being raised in large groups of their peers, they look to their peers for approval.
Mikhail Gorbachev was right in his book, Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the World (1988) when he stated that:
Perhaps the breakdown in Russian society with its prevalence of alcoholism, divorce, abortion, etc. may be due to the separation of young children from their mothers in day care at too early an age.
What Should Be Done?
We know that children do best in the family environment of warmth, love and happiness. Only parents can judge how these needs can be understood and best provided for their children. Childcare decisions must remain with parents, minus pressure from those with political agendas and ideological fantasies. Direct childcare payments to parents is the best and most positive solution. This was the policy of the former Conservative government. Mr. Trudeau has promised to increase these benefits for “middle class families”, which he defines as those earning up to $150,000 annually. This indicates how little Mr. Trudeau, with his inherited wealth, knows or understands actual middle class families and their financial situation. For example, according to Stats Canada, in 2013, a two parent family with or without children averaged an annual income of only $84,080.00. Nevertheless, if Trudeau follows through on his child benefit policy of payments directly to parents, it will likely be one of the few sensible economic decisions he makes.