Day Care Deception

The central issue of day care is often framed to pit conservatives against liberals, working moms against stay-at-home moms, and feminists against traditional families. But the real conflict, as Robertson argues in Day Care Deception, is between all parents and the day care establishment -- a multimillion-dollar lobby with a vested interest in the expansion of subsidized day care services. Robertson reveals how this establishment works to increase its power and silence its critics. Researchers who point to a correlation between aggression among children and too much nonmaternal care have seen their work vilified. Meanwhile, some scholars have disputed the obvious: that the mother-child bond is crucial to early childhood development. The day care lobby keeps pouring more money into elections, and politicians offer more subsidies for commercial day care -- while parents ask for policy options that would help them stay home with their children. Day Care Deception is a brave and thoughtful book about a contentious debate whose outcome will have profound consequences for our children and our social future. Book jacket.

Brian C. Robertson, a research fellow at the Family Research Council, has written extensively on family policy issues