riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (09/28/83)
I was a childcare baby, not by necessity but by choice. When I
reached the age of three or so and was driving my mother absolutely
crazy with my constant demands for attention, she consulted our pedia-
trician for advice. He prescribed nursery school. The result: I got
my first intensive exposure to other children my age (something which
I think made a lot of difference) and my mother got a few hours of peace
every day.
BUT: I only went to nursery school mornings. Afternoons I was back
home. Since Mom had gotten the shopping and the housework more or less
out of the way in my absence (she was a full-time housewife at the time),
we were free to use the afternoons to enjoy each other's company. We had
considerably more interaction than the paltry few minutes that someone
posted to this net as average. Twenty years later, we both remember that
time fondly. An additional plus which might be attributable to the time
I spent at home was that I was an early reader.
What conclusions do I draw from this? I think kids need to be around
other kids from a very early age. I also think they need to be around
their parents (both if possible, one in a pinch). For that reason I don't
like the idea of a two-career family in which the kids and the parents only
interact evenings when the parents are exhausted anyway. The optimal
solution to me seems to be the one-and-a-half-career family where the kids
get to be out of the house and around other kids for half a day, but at
home with (at least one) parent the rest of the time. And by the way, I
don't see the latter as women's work: since I feel this way and don't
happen to be that crazy about working anyway, I am likely to volunteer to
be the one with half a career when the time comes.
-- Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,ut-ngp}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP