A Child’s Future Is a Concern for the Present

We all want the best for our children. Before we have kids that ideal might suggest a rather easy path in life. Oh, to be sure, few people would consider it effortless. But actually, deciding on the options for our kids often seems easy before we’re thrown into the midst of it. After all, don’t we simply need to ask ourselves what’s best for a child and then go with that option?

A Child’s Future Is a Concern for the Present

Any parent can attest to the fact that things are seldom this easy. In reality we’re often confronted with complex choices which require balancing different benefits and deficits. For example, consider the standard situation of two working parents. That position will itself require some thought to decide on it rather than having one parent stay at home full time. To begin, the family loses out on money that’s extremely beneficial for a child. Next, the child might internalize some ideas about gender roles by seeing one parent going to work and the other staying at home. But on the other hand, it’s natural to worry about how a child will cope when left to another’s care.

After all, we know that child care during the most formative years can have a huge impact on his or her future. The Stanford marshmallow experiment is one of the more well-known examples of why children need strong guidance in their early years. Children usually need adults to teach them important emotional coping mechanisms. And if they don’t learn them early on there’s a high chance that they’ll struggle for the rest of their life.

All of these reasons help to explain why parents put so much time and effort into finding the perfect daycare. People without children often assume it’s just a place for kids to play for a while every …

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