Parents absent in McKew’s Vision
27-April-2009
If there is any silver lining to be found in the unfortunate collapse of ABC Learning, it has to be the renewed media and community focus on both the nature and future of childcare in Australia.
This is a debate we desperately need to have.
Although conspicuous by her absence in dealing with the fallout of ABC Learning, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education & Childcare, Maxine McKew, recently weighed in with an opinion piece that had, I have to say, slightly Orwellian overtones.
Maxine mused on what a “post ABC world would look like for children in approved care” and declared “our job as policymakers is to ensure young children have access to a calm, stimulating environment run by professionals.”
There’s a definite under-current in the use of words like “approved care” and “run by professionals”.
Maxine also went on to describe a school as “a place where our youngsters will be able to spend time with well-trained early-learning educators who will help them develop cognitive, social and behavioural skills”.
In essence, her vision for early childhood is to extend the school-type principle of professionals teaching everything - including social and behavioural skills - to very young children in childcare.
In support of her argument, Maxine declares, “babies come out of the womb ready to learn” -and this is certainly very true. But there seems to be one crucial element that is totally absent in Maxine’s vision – and that is the most important educator of all – Parents.
There is little acknowledgment in Maxine’s brave new world of the fact that the vast majority of parents make arrangements for one partner or the other to provide exclusive care for their babies in the first few years of life.
In fact a comparison of the 2006 Childcare Census with ABS data finds that just 5.7% of Australian children under 1 year old attend a Childcare Centre, and just 1.4% attend care in a Family Day Care Scheme. The figures jump to 21% and 5.1% respectively for 1- 2 years olds. But the fact is that the vast majority of very young babies are in the care of a parent or family member for the first 2 years of their lives.
Yet there is never any mention by Maxine of the role and responsibilities of parents in raising, and especially educating, their children. There is no acknowledgement of the significant research which details the many health and social benefits of very young children, especially those under 2, being exclusively cared for by a parent.
Clearly, quietly and unobtrusively, most Australian parents are juggling family and work commitments and making the instinctive choice that they would prefer their children to be in parental care for those early years.
But this all seems to be going on in a social vacuum – there is zero recognition of this fact in the media. The media stories are all about working mothers, paid maternity leave, productivity, or the horror stories of children being locked behind in childcare Centres. They give the impression that childcare, even for the very young, is now a “social norm”. This is clearly not the case at all.
Whole generations of young women are growing up with the very clear message that Maxine’s brave new world of very young children being properly cared for by professionals is the ideal to strive for. And this could have serious repercussions for the future.
To even discuss the impact of institutionalized care on very young babies, as children’s author Mem Fox did recently, is to draw the absolute ridicule and ire of the angry and very loud politically correct crowd.
It is disturbing when there is no room for debate in a world where the government itself refers to children as “economic units” and the social pressure is on women to maintain a career at all cost.
I am not for one moment arguing that child care is not a very necessary option for many families. The proportion of children under 5 in childcare has grown from 23% in 1980 to 67% in 2005. And there are many reasons for this growth.
But I do see a very real danger in under-valuing parenting to such a degree that many parents believe their children – even at a very young age – are better off being cared for by “trained professionals”.
I am very concerned that the Parliamentary Secretary’s brave new world of mandatory trained educators for even the youngest of children will further perpetuate the idea that parents are “amateurs” when it comes to caring for and educating their babies and toddlers – and that these infants are in fact better off in institutionalised care.
The debate we have to have is not about childcare per se. Nor is it about stay-at-home mums versus working mums – the fact is, most modern Mums will be both, depending on what works best at various stages in their children’s lives.
The debate we need to have is more fundamental - it’s about the rights and responsibilities of parents, and the value to our society of parenting.
I found myself in the strange position of agreeing with Tracee Hutchinson, a writer and broadcaster whose views I don’t often share, when she wrote last month:
“This child-care obsession has undermined the value of one parent (usually the mother) staying home with a preschool child. Certainly many who choose that option are frequently regarded in the most disparaging ways…..
The stranglehold on parenting, that putting kids into child care has created, needs to be broken. I think it's time to get back to basics and to reinstate the value of raising our own children.”
I’d suggest to Maxine McKew that, rather than espousing calm environments, aesthetically pleasing building design, and trained professionals – she needs to put parents and parenting at the forefront of the debate.
Our role as policy makers should be to provide more support and education to parents and empower them to take up with vigour, enthusiasm and confidence the most important and most economically relevant task they will ever have – parenting their children.