The working mother debate – give us all a break

I’d like to grumble today, about the seemingly never-ending debate concerning the effect of working mothers on children’s development.  If I had a buck for every article I’ve read on this issue in the last six years, I’d have, well, a lot of bucks.  God knows, I don’t mind debate, but surely we could get a new perspective, some fresh points of view at some point?  

Last week the Herald ran yet another story citing research apparently showing that children are adversely affected by attending childcare before the age of three.  

Ok, here’s a thought:  there have been thousands, nay, MILLIONS of murderers, psychopaths, abusers, burglars, arsonists, thieves, bullies, and Wall Street CEOs in the history of the world.  How many of these menaces spent the first three years of their lives being cared for SOLELY by their mothers?  Hitler – I bet his mother didn’t go out to work.  Ghenhis Khan (a hero to some, but fairly bloodthirsty to those he killed) – I guarantee his mother kept the home fires in the yurt burning.  Stalin?  Yeah, I rekon in 19th century Russia a mother’s place was in the home.  

Could someone please author a study on the effect of being cared for solely by your mother for the first three years of life?

Personally, I think it can work out rather well, after all I was raised in this way.  Lo and behold, I didn’t turn out to be a genocidal maniac, but I suspect more than one factor was at play there.  Things like: the character of my parents, the way they loved me, the community I was raised in, genetic factors, the education I received, the lack of poverty or family members in jail, the good nutrition I benefited from and they way my parents taught me to have empathy for my fellow human beings.  

Raising a person is like baking a cake.  Every ingredient is crucial to the outcome.   You can make a cake to the same recipe over and over again, but unless you’re a machine it will turn out a tiny bit different every time.   Vary just one ingredient, one part of the process, by only a small amount, and the cake will turn out  slightly differently.  Its the same with people.  Siblings, from the same genetic material, raised in the same environment, can become two utterly different adults.  

I don’t want to be judged for working, and don’t want anyone to judge my friends who don’t work.  The researchers of the world should take a break from any further studies on this issue for twenty years – wait til our children have grown up and revisit it if you must, and then feel free to beat me over the head with the results if you find anything significant.  I bet you won’t though.   

Meanwhile, go and research how to stop children in families we know to be dysfunctional from becoming the next generation of murderers, psychopaths, abusers, burglars, arsonists, thieves, bullies, and Wall Street CEOs.  

That might actually be useful.