Institutionalise the child
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By Riku Siivonen
It had been a perfect evening. The warm sun was going down in Brittany, and you could smell the Atlantic from the terrace of the villa. We toasted the young bride and groom once again. This is what travel to France is all about!
But then the moment came.
A moment's carelessness, a couple of ill-considered words, and bang: the conversation took a wrong turn.
"Are you really going to send your son to a day care centre at the age of a year and a half?"
Asking the question was the mother of the groom, who had cared for her five children at home.
She did not try to disguise the fact that in her mind, my wife and I were bent on destroying your child's future by casting this innocent bud of a human being into a den of hyenas where the boy will die a lingering death from a series of ear infections.
I took a breath. Yyeess - that is exactly what we plan to do.
I had no desire during my holiday to ponder the social dimensions of child care. However, I understood that I was expected to present arguments for my decision. This was especially unpleasant, as I had no arguments to offer. I had not thought about it much at all. If both my wife and I want to go back to work, then the boy needs to be institutionalised.
My wife was nowhere to be seen, so I went into tortoise defence mode. I mumbled something about our shorter work weeks, I praised the small size of the future day care centre, and noted that the disease problem had undoubtedly disappeared, as academic research had established that good hygiene at a day care centre reduces the spread of diseases.
And in some cases it may be safer for a child to be in day care if the parents are unable to take care of him or her.
Fortunately my wife returned to the table. She is a day care centre veteran from Vantaa, and her memories are exclusively good. Besides, she is a much more balanced person than I am, even though I was cared for by my mother and nannies.
My dearest came to the rescue: it is not at all a bad thing for the boy to meet other children, considering that we do not visit other families much.
I nevertheless felt somewhat ill at ease. The feeling stayed with me the following day, as I drove along small French roads. Are we making a mistake here?
Perhaps the matter should be pondered from a wider angle. During the past 100 years there have been a million different ways to care for and raise children. In the early days, they were cared for on the side of a field. Then there were the authoritarian educators during the war, and then the hippie-type ideas of their children: later, emancipation and day care.
But has some truly significant change taken place?
Have the generations that have followed doen significantly better, or worse than their predecessors?
I don't think so.
Human growth is the sum of so many different pieces, that the well-being of our children is threatened more by structures that support our unsustainable consumer lifestyle than by the pillars of our family policy.
I liked my own thoughts. The life of our son no longer seemed to be bound for destruction. Sometimes a family fares better if both parents are engaged in meaningful work. Sometimes it is better for one of the parents to stay at home. It's all the same. Isn't having a loving and safe atmosphere at home more important than how child care is arranged?
My wife murmured in agreement in the back seat.
But then the moment came. A brief lapse of attention, a couple of careless glances to the side, and bang! I rammed a car in front of us with our rental car.
A startled French lady got out of her Renault, and I got out of my Corsa.
We examined the damage, the lady felt that the scratch was not so serious, and drove off.
The wheels of the Corsa were pointing in opposite directions. This will mean a bill of EUR 500 for the insurance deductible, I cursed. And all I was doing was trying to think of my family's well being.
It was only then that I remembered that my wife and child were there with me on our family holiday.
"Are you all right?"
They were, this time. But perhaps there are situations in which it is safer for children to be in day care if the parents are not able to care for them.
First published in print 11.8.2006 in Nyt, the weekly Friday supplement of Helsingin Sanomat
RIKU SIIVONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
riku.siivonen@hs.fi
