JEFF W. writes:

A question I have sometimes thought about is, “What is the ideal amount of time children should spend with people who don’t care about them?”

After thinking about this for some time, I have decided that spending time with those who do not care about them does not benefit children in any way, with one possible exception. It possibly prepares them for a work environment where they will have to work with people who do not care about them.

I have concluded that the ideal amount of time children should have to spend with those who do not care about them is zero. In the Kingdom of God, which Christ preached, it will be zero. The question here is similar to, “What is the ideal amount of time children should be afflicted with serious disease?”

At the same time, it does children good to spend time with all the people who do love them: extended family, neighbors and friends.

Related questions are: “What can be done for children whose parents do not care about them?” and “What can be done about these parents?”

Laura writes:

You raise an important issue.

The institutionalization of children – in schools, day care centers and organized activities – is widely believed to prepare them for the “real world.” This argument is repeated often in schools. Large organizations, it is thought, are similar to work environments. They impart the social skills children will later need in the work world. Some people even believe the stress and unpleasantness children encounter in impersonal group settings have salutary effects. For instance Melvin Konner, the anthropologist and psychologist, wrote in the piece discussed here:

[E]ven high-quality day care raises the level of cortisol, a stress hormone, in toddlers over the course of the day, while a study of children of the same age, from similar backgrounds, in home environments showed declines during the same period.⁸ But what does this mean? If life is full of stress, then it can be argued that day care children are being prepared for it.

In fact, there is strong evidence that the opposite is true. Impersonal care impedes self-restraint and the ability to form healthy relationships.

In this comprehensive review of studies of day care, Jenet Jacob Erikson writes:

Hours in child care is the most significant child-care predictor of lower social competence, higher externalizing problems, more adult–child conflict, and more negative dyadic play throughout the early-childhood and transition-to-school years. · The effect of quantity of care is comparable to the effect of poverty in predicting behavioral problems. Problems observed included increased neediness, assertiveness, disobedience/defiance, and aggression.

More hours in child care predicts significantly fewer social skills and poorer work habits in 3rd-grade measures. By the 6th grade, more hours in center care predicts more problem behaviors but is not associated with social skills and work habits. By age 15, more hours in non-relative child care during the early years predicts more problem behaviors and increased risk-taking and impulsivity.

Looking at childhood as a whole and not just at the early years, there is ample evidence to believe large amounts of time in institutional settings do not prepare children for the real world. As Mary Eberstadt wrote,  the phenonemon of the lone adolescent sociopath who kills his classmates or teachers in a shooting spree is relatively new. A high number of these children spent long hours in non-maternal care. This is the extreme manifestation of a more widespread phenomenon. Institutions breed narcissists.

 In school and organizations, children encounter a changing cast of adults. Adults who never form strong attachments to them over long long periods are not able to significantly participate in the shaping of character. How could they? They don’t really know the children they care for.  

The family is the natural place for children to learn how to cope with friction. The family is the natural place for a child to learn to cope with the personalities of others. The functioning family is always, at least in part, a realm of friction. Daily, intimate interaction requires the resolution of conflict.  Institutions breed narcissists. In order to know thyself, one must be known by others.

As for Jeff’s question as to what can society do for children whose parents do not care about them. For one, it can restore private initiative in child-rearing. Interestingly Erikson, points out in the above study that boys in long hours of day care have especially insecure attachments to their fathers. 

There will always, however, be un-loved children.  The people who typically rescue them are interested individuals – aunts, grandparents, relatives, friends. Institutions don’t love.

                                          — Comments —

Mary writes:

I’ve always wondered at the use of the phrase “real life.” It’s invariably used as a catch-all to describe life in the marketplace, schools, business, all artificial and impersonal settings. (Example: “If you homeschool, how will your kids ever be prepared for real life?”) What’s more “real” than life in the family?

Laura writes:

Exactly. Family life is “real.” The cast of characters does not change. Organizations – schools and day care centers especially – are comparatively artificial. The bonds are fleeting.  

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