They Say: Mums, It’s Still Your Fault. Well, Yours And Daycare

Worried that putting your kid in childcare will make her sick, dumb and mean? Add this to the pile of negatives: a new study claims to show early years spent in center-based daycare leads to stressed out life in the early teens.

Wait, wait. You pay extra for the high-quality, extra-certified, Italian-named, fun, fun, loving and fun daycare? Too bad. Doesn’t matter. You farmed out the kid. She pays the price as a teen.

So is this good news for mums who stay home? Not exactly. Because if you’re insensitive — mind you, insensitivity did not get defined — you’ve also managed to stress out your kid whether or not he was in center-based daycare.

A brief write-up of the study from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development says researchers observed 1,000 children, ages one-month to mid-adolescence, in and out of their homes. They tested the awakening cortisol levels of the teens, which, when normal, are high in the morning and lower as the day goes on.

The kids who were in daycare and/or had crappy mums awoke with lower levels of cortisol and, therefore, were determined to be stressed.

My poor kids and their future stressed-out teens! They have not only been in various forms of center-based childcare (sometimes called “preschool”!), but their mother has been known to show an insensitive side when stressed, a condition that is clearly the result of her own childhood spent in center-based daycares. The cycle!