It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.
The Economist's point is weird/wrong for another reason. Immigrant women have babies too. They can't be both looking after their own children and looking after other people's simultaneously. Expensive childcare doesn't seem like the kind of problem you can permanently fix by just allowing tons of immigration from third world countries.
The lady who lives and babysits across the street from my sister does exactly this.
There is a professional daycare on my block. I see the lady who runs it at our corner coffee shop from time to time. Her kids were in there with everyone else’s. (This was a point she marketed.) She’s an immigrant from Kenya.
Negative. As a child, of a poor family, my childcare was some combination of aunts, cousins, and family friends.
As a parent, while in the military, we often used professional childcare in the form of a daycare. Now, as an engineering, our nanny watches our children along with her own children.
So, personally, childcare has rarely referred to professional childcare.
No, not necessarily. It's more about availability. Even if you do assume it's "professional" childcare in some manner, it's one of the easiest small businesses to start. The regulations are strict, but the requirements are cheap beyond location and food.
My wife ran a daycare out of our house for a short period when our children were small, as it was more cost effective than having two children in daycare elsewhere.
Interesting to see how the rights people usually fight for become unimportant when it benefits you. I hope your nanny got at least minimum wage too.
Why not?
For the child, this is a time when they are developing language and cultural habits that will have a lifelong impact, ultimately impacting the quality of their employment and spouse. Immigrants will not provide that. It's hard enough finding non-immigrants who can provide it.
Want to guess who he's taken after? His friends. He has a much more neutral accent than either one of us.
That's not to say your interaction or the childminders will have no impact, but if any single person has such a substantial impact on the way your child speaks, then you should be more concerned about their isolation than the English skill of one specific person they're interacting with.
Source? Personally, i'd rather my kid have an immigrant baby sitter speaking and teaching my child in their native language. Plenty of studies around long term intelligence of children learning second languages early on....
This in itself may be a myth:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debate-rages-over...
Hearing nothing but "crisply perfect English" as children robs them of this gift, and normalizes exclusion to them — at the level of awareness that all of the lessons we learn at that tender age: too deeply even to notice, let alone change, without considerable effort, or some specific motivating factor or event (which, having internalized exclusion, is structurally less likely to happen, in the first place).
To me, that's improper child care.
So 95% of children aren't cared for properly? Elitist bull.
It's a matter of degree of course, and there is no perfection, but that doesn't mean one should be complacent with less than the best.