Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 24, 1993 TAG: 9302240427
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM R. MATTOX JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MARY POPPINS KNEW BETTER
IN THE WAKE of the Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood "nannygate" fiascoes, calls for new legislation designed to expand the supply of "quality" child care have arisen from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Both the day-care lobby on the left and the anti-regulation lobby on the right appear convinced that if there were only (choose one) more government subsidies for day care or less government regulation of home-based care, employed parents would have a much easier time finding a modern-day Mary Poppins to care for their children.Missing from the arguments of both groups, however, is a recognition that the shortage of so-called quality care in this country stems more from a cultural devaluation of parental child-rearing than from public-policy deficiencies of one kind or another.
There will never be a large supply of competent, native-born citizens eager to care for other people's children so long as the prevailing cultural message in our society is that job responsibilities in the marketplace are more important than child-rearing responsibilities in the home. If large numbers of middle- and upper-class married couples capable of meeting both their economic and child-rearing responsibilities continue to subordinate parenting to paid work, no one should be surprised if substitute parenting remains a low-status occupation largely unappealing to America's brightest and best.
And no one should be surprised if many children suffer as a result. A number of research studies have linked full-time group day-care to a host of developmental and medical problems. In addition, new research shows that group day-care often stunts children's language development because the bulk of their daily interaction is with other kids rather than adults.
While nanny care generally poses fewer problems than center-based care, a University of Chicago study does show higher-than-average rates of "insecure attachment" among infants in nanny care, and it is hard to imagine that the cognitive development of American youngsters primarily cared for by immigrants would rival that of U.S. children primarily cared for by family members.
Ironically, that most remarkable of all nannies, Mary Poppins, understood the limitations of substitute parenting very well. As viewers of the Walt Disney film classic will recall, Mary knew that it would be better for the Banks children to have parents actively involved in raising children than to have a top-quality substitute day-care provider - even one who could delight children by sliding up banisters or flying over cities with an umbrella.
Unlike today's "children's defense" lobby, Mary didn't see her mission as permanently replacing Mr. and Mrs. Banks as Jane and Michael's child-care provider. On the contrary, she set out to show Mr. Banks, a self-absorbed workaholic, that the care and rearing of one's own children offered pleasures - and challenges - very different from those in the adult marketplace.
Mary knew that winning over Mr. Banks would also affect Mrs. Banks, a women's-rights agitator, since the time women invest in child-rearing - and the satisfaction they derive from it - is strongly linked to the level of support they receive from their husbands. Once "the wind changed," and Mr. and Mrs. Banks discovered the joys of flying kites and active parenting, Mary Poppins departed, her mission accomplished.
Like Mary Poppins, many feminists today are trying to get child-rearing out of the "women's issue" ghetto by focusing their consciousness-raising efforts on men. But while Mary sought to rekindle Mr. Banks' demonstrable love for his family, these feminists appear more interested in enlisting men in efforts to dump child-rearing responsibilities on paid substitutes. Indeed, Working Mother magazine regularly passes out "family-friendly" gold stars to male corporate executives who launch new day-care programs - including ghastly innovations like work-site day-care for ill children .
And whereas Mary Poppins never suggested that Mr. and Mrs. Banks should consider themselves interchangeable co-parents, many feminists today romanticize the androgynous "new man" who sees no distinctly male role in family life.
Not surprisingly, modern feminists are having far less success in encouraging male responsibility than Mary Poppins had with Mr. Banks. Not only are more fathers today abandoning their families than ever before in American history, but those making the greatest contribution at home hardly fit the "new man" ideal.
For example, a University of Virginia study found that sole-breadwinner "Ozzies" spend more time with children than do fathers with employed wives, and a University of Kentucky study found that religiously conservative men (who often are depicted as Neanderthals) actually help their wives with household chores more than other men.
If real-world public policy changes were likely to lead to the happy ending of Mary Poppins' fictional story, there would be good reason to make new child-care legislation a major priority in the 103rd Congress. But new day care spending is apt to exacerbate the parenting deficit in many children's lives. And regulatory changes, while needed, are only as good as parents' willingness to seize opportunities to spend more time with children.
Our best hope for improving the care of children in this country is to raise the cultural esteem afforded parental child-rearing. And the key to stimulating such change lies in "turning the hearts of fathers to their children," as the Hebrew prophet Malachi once put it.
Lest there be any doubt, America needs men who prefer down-on-the-field fathering to up-in-the-stands spectating. Just as John Madden's favorite players revel in the down-and-dirty world of professional football, we need a nation of All-Madden Fathers who revel in the rough-and-tumble world of hands-on child-rearing.
We also need men and women who recognize that even though paternal and maternal roles sometimes overlap, fathers and mothers are no more interchangeable than wide receivers and down linemen. And while the rigors of parenting demand the occasional use of competent substitutes, we need fathers and mothers who recognize that no society worth its salt would leave the important job of child-rearing to a bunch of second-stringers - even substitutes as supercalifragilisticexpealidocious as Mary Poppins.