by Libby Brooks
It can seem that policy is based on the assumption that all mothers are desperate to return to work. This presents another culture clash. Gloria is not a middle-class professional anxious to get back to the well-paid job which fulfils her sense of self beyond the home. Once she has paid for child care, returning to work in a college kitchen will barely offer more financial incentive than the benefits that keep her on the poverty line. And she certainly wouldn’t have the time to take Allana and Sienna to Snakes and Ladders any more.
The motivations behind the government’s ambitious ten-year child care strategy – which aims to provide free nurseries in every community and will compel local authorities to provide care for children up to the age of fourteen – remain ambiguous. It would seem that the emphasis has lately shifted from getting mothers back to work to the impact of early-years intervention on child development.
So what kind of children do the government want adults to raise, and what kind of parents are deemed unable to do it by themselves? A belief in the possibilities of nurture is far from progressive if it is applied only in order to populate the workforce of the future. Granted, a happy, resilient child will probably go on to enjoy a fulfilling working life as an adult. But that’s not all that a life is for.
I remember at a Daycare Trust conference in London the look of blank incomprehension on the face of a Swedish delegate who was asked about the ‘later social benefits’ of her country’s much-vaunted approach to preschool child care. As she struggled to answer, the Chair stepped in. Perhaps, he suggested, she found the question difficult because she wasn’t beholden to the Anglo-American obsession with outcomes. Eventually the delegate offered: ‘We don’t regard preschool as preparation for school or work, but as a place to have a happy childhood.’
Similar to the Swedish approach is that of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, home to a body of pedagogical theory and practice that is admired throughout the world. In 1964, the influential educationalist Loris Malaguzzi founded a network of municipal early childhood centres for children aged from a few months to six years old. (Britain is one of the few European countries where children start school as young as four.) Parents and other members of the local community actively support these municipal centres. Malaguzzi’s approach has been described as no less than part of a civil strategy to win back society for children.
Malaguzzi’s vision of the child was capacious and optimistic: ‘A gifted child for whom we need a gifted teacher.’ He rejected the narrative of schooling transforming children into adults, and believed that children were active constructors of their own learning. Malaguzzi saw teaching as a democratic process – rather than making children fit for school he wanted to make schools fit for children – but found that too often a child’s potential was ‘cut into pieces’ by the conformity of educational expectation.
Peter Moss and Pat Petrie of London’s Institute of Education point out that Reggio’s philosophy was embedded in a particular political context. They note its origins in postwar Italy, quoting an interview with the mayor of Reggio in the 1960s in which he described how the Fascist experience had taught the community that people who conformed and obeyed were dangerous, and that ‘in building a new society it was imperative to safeguard and communicate that lesson and nurture … a vision of children who can think and act for themselves.’
Centres like those in Reggio require enormous financial and human capital, as well as a local community and a political administration that is willing to sustain them. But, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Reggio’s children’s services, Harvard professor of education Howard Gardner suggested another reason why this model had not been replicated throughout the world. There are almost anarchic overtones to Malaguzzi’s insistence that children can be guides in the teaching process, he wrote. It was a threatening vision: ‘It means that you abandon an approach to life that is purely instrumental, purely financial … in favour of one that recognises the rights of children and the obligations of humanity.’
Nevertheless, elements of the Reggio approach are being integrated by some practitioners of early-years schooling in this country. But if child care is genuinely to centre around children – rather than the employability of their parents – and all children rather than those whose carers are deemed feckless, then much has to change. This country would do well to adopt the Scandinavian model of early-years provision, where child-caring has genuine professional status, with meticulous training and high pay.
Embracing the culture of the pedagogue is one thing. But unpaid child care has an even lower status than the paid kind. And meanwhile, new research is showing that one-to-one care for very young children is a central determinant in raising happy, secure, resilient children.
In 2003 and 2004, two large and significant longitudinal studies both reported that high levels of nursery care, particularly for the under-twos, led to an increase in emotional insecurity. In the United States, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which had been following more than one thousand children since 1991, concluded: ‘The more time children spend in child care from birth to age four and a half, the more adults tended to rate them as less likely to get along with others, as more assertive, as disobedient and as aggressive.’
A year later, a UK study – the Effective Provision of Preschool Education project (EPPE) – noted the benefits of early-years education for three- and four-year-olds, finding that nursery care advanced children’s cognitive and social skills, especially in those from deprived backgrounds. However, it warned that ‘high levels of group care before the age of three (and particularly before the age of two) were associated with higher levels of antisocial behaviour at age three’.
Then, in 2005, Penelope Leach presented the initial findings of her Families, Children and Child Care (FCCC) study, a five-year follow-up of 1,200 families in north London and Oxfordshire. She found that, at eighteen months, the development of children cared for by their mothers was better than the development of children who had received any other type of child care, including those looked after by nannies or grandparents.
The FCCC study suggested that nurseries are the worst child care option for children up to at least eighteen months, while home-based care by nannies or child-minders is ‘significantly’ better than that provided by ‘informal’ carers such as grandparents. But the study also emphasised that the differences were small, and that toddlers whose mothers were depressed or otherwise insensitive to their needs benefited from high-quality nursery care.
Given the sensitivity of the debate about the care of young children, it was inevitable that these findings caused controversy. The results were swiftly filleted by that insidious element of the British media that delights in pillorying working mothers. Alternatively, the authors of the studies were accused of being unsympathetic to the realities of women’s lives, much as John Bowlby was a generation ago. Discussion of the role of fathers was conspicuous for its absence in all studies, though the FCCC researchers planned to publish a paper on fathers at a later date.
But the important data contained in detailed studies like these demands that we do more than endlessly polarise positions – the right insisting that women belong at home; the left, along with many feminists, making the historic mistake of assuming that every woman is a careerist at heart.
As Penelope Leach commented when she was interviewed about the findings: ‘These days it isn’t a choice between having an “at-home mummy” or a “working mummy”. Most people have a bit of each and child care is the backbone of many people’s lives, which is why it is important to get it right.’
The inference is not that every mother must stay indoors until her child starts school. Taken together, the data shows that for children under three, high levels of group-based care can have damaging effects on emotional development, while beyond that age the situation reverses and nursery care benefits all aspects of development. For very young children, it is best if the majority of their care is
provided one-to-one by mothers or high-quality carers.
The studies also highlight the significant differences in care needs between babies, toddlers and preschool children. Although not included in the initial release of findings in 2005, the FCCC research also covered older children and was expected to show that, from around three, children benefit from spending some time in nursery education.
Child-minders and nannies are prohibitively expensive for many, and Leach noted that the government must look at ways of expanding child-minding to make it more affordable. She was also critical of plans to extend free early-years education to two-year-olds – a move prompted by the EPPE findings about the impact of group care on the educational development of poorer children.
Leach also said that children’s centres – undergoing a rapid expansion to include one in every community – should not end up as little more than ‘nurseries with add-on’, but should offer drop-in centres where infants would come with a parent or other carer and not be pressured towards group play too early.
And what about the Glorias of this world? Will the next ten years see poorer parents having their toddlers wrenched off them, because they have been deemed incapable of providing the appropriate emotional and intellectual stimulus to bridge the early-years attainment gap? Or will universal children’s centres – like the PEEP project – consolidate the involvement of parents in their children’s learning? Interestingly, when discussing how to tackle the escalation in adolescent depression, many mental health professionals have advocated putting parenting classes on the National Curriculum.
Meanwhile, Gloria keeps talking and waiting for Allana to talk back. Though she may not manage the same precipitate patter, Allana is not entirely mute around her best friend. She is an active meaning-maker, if not yet a skilled communicator. They are dividing up Barbie dolls. Which one do you want? You can have that one. You can’t have this one, this is my favourite. Allana begins to make some conversation between her male and female dolls: ‘I’m not wearing any shoes’; ‘That’s OK, I’ll carry you.’ But although she keeps them talking, the noises degenerate into a jumble of sounds because she can’t find the words quickly enough. It looks frustrating.
Kayleigh is putting her doll to sleep in Allana’s Barbie castle.
‘Someone’s knocking on the door,’ says Allana, outside.
‘Hello, my name’s Cinderella, who are you?’
‘Pony.’
‘Oh, so if you want to come to our tea party, it’s our tea party.’ Kayleigh opens the drawbridge to Allana’s doll.
‘Hello. What your name, what your name?’
‘Cinderella, now who are you?’
‘Batman.’
‘You can come to our tea party.’
Allana starts jiggling the castle and a bed falls into Kayleigh’s face.
‘Don’t play with it!’ she screeches.
Sienna marches in, pink rucksack on her back as usual. ‘I got lots of bags,’ she announces with satisfaction. ‘I gon’ tidy up in a minute!’ she adds efficiently. ‘Me need two bags to put the packed lunch in.’
Gloria brings in some socks to put away. Sienna folds hers away in her drawer. ‘Shall I help?’ asks Kayleigh. ‘I wan’ help me one’, Allana insists. She puts some away in her drawer too. ‘Are they my ones?’ asks Kayleigh, confused. ‘I think you’ve got lots of socks at home,’ says Gloria.
‘Do you want some of this?’ Kayleigh offers her the microwaved cake. ‘I made it for you.’
‘Nau’y, nau’y gill,’ says Allana to Sienna once their mother has retreated, ‘I’ll smack you.’ The crime is undefined and Sienna is unconcerned.
‘’Lana, I found the dummy. We got new bag. I’ve got a new bottle.’ She is fondling the special bottle that belongs to Allana’s Baby Annabel doll. When you tip it up the milk drains, and when you right it again it refills.
‘Can I have it?’ asks Kayleigh slyly, immediately discerning the superior quality of this plaything.
‘No, it’s ’Lana’s,’ says Sienna with hostility.
‘Let me feed it!’ cries Kayleigh, snatching the bottle from Sienna’s grip and turning to cradle Baby Annabel. Allana flicks the switch at the back of the neck. The doll emits a pre-recorded burp and both snigger loudly. Kayleigh turns to Sienna triumphantly: ‘Annabel burped!’
Allana tries to get her hand on the magic bottle but Kayleigh moves it away, gently but deliberately. She can’t operate Annabel properly and it’s making her crotchety. ‘Stop it! It’s not working.’
‘Because YOU broke it!’ shouts Allana.
‘She’s thirsty ain’t she?’ says Kayleigh, into the air.
‘Bye, see you later …’ Allana has gone back to playing with the Barbies, feigning disinterest.
Then comes another round of noisy evacuation. ‘Allana! Annabel’s burping!’ The pair can’t contain themselves. They make a staccato impression of an adult laugh: ‘A-ha-a-ha-a-ha-ha-ha!’
Nicholas
‘Once there was a programme that was an hour long and I counted twenty adverts, and they were all about a minute long, so that was twenty minutes.’
Two crepuscular portraits of dark-dressed ancestors hang in the sitting-room. The gentleman by the fireplace bears a certain resemblance to Robert Burns, with the same milky-blue complexion and wanton sideburns. In the background of the painting is a bookshelf, and on it can be made out the spine of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It is a dry, cold Sunday afternoon towards the end of November, and Nicholas has been to a bowling party for a classmate’s eighth birthday.
Himself newly eight, Nicholas is, in all matters, an empiricist. It is rare for him to resist the opportunity to mathematise. He has lived here for two and a half years, with a mum and a dad, one sister, and one au pair. His father is a shipping lawyer. His mother teaches languages at an independent girls’ secondary school, near the major London preparatory school which he attends. He has three grandparents, an aunt and three cousins, two uncles and some older cousins.
His house has eight rooms, if you count the sitting-room which takes up most of the ground floor as one, and three bathrooms. ‘Aaaah,’ he sighs, for the sake of making the sound. He has tufty blond hair and scrupulous consonants. His sister is five and a half, and her name is Emma. ‘It’s quite hard to explain what she’s like. She’s quite like me in some ways.’
Nicholas’s bedroom is on the first floor, next to his sister’s, and their shared bathroom. He has recently had a new carpet fitted. His box bed, bookcases and sofa are all in place, sinking their shapes into the fresh pile, but the shelves and surfaces are empty of clutter. It smells of clean.
On the cork board above his pillow are drawings by him, secured with the pins from the pot on his bedside table. There are pictures of pandas, fish, several coloured-in patterns, and a drawing he did this week at school about Christmas. The forthcoming festive season is his favourite time of year, apart from his birthday. ‘I would like my birthday a bit further away from Hallowe’en because it’s the next day and I get invited to Hallowe’en parties. I get invited to about four and then I can’t go to any of them because it’s my own birthday party.’
Nicholas has finished all his homework. He had a lot to do because on Fridays it’s double. ‘Probably it takes about an hour and a half, when normally it takes about twenty minutes. At the weekend I have geography, double spelling and reading, but normally I just have reading and maths, or reading and spelling. I’m good at spelling but I’m very, very, very good at maths’. Because he’s so good at maths his teacher has put him up two sheets in the times-table tests.
Numbers can tell us a lot about childhood. It has been estimated that the total under-sixteen market in the UK adds up to £30 billion per annum, and that children receive an average of seventy new toys a year. It currently costs more to bring up a child than to purchase a house. Just as we have come to bemoan the corruption of Christmas by commerce, so we worry that childhood is uniquely at risk from the gluttony of mar
ket capitalism.
Children’s changing status in the economy reveals much about their position in society. The young have always been active economic participants, whether as producers or as consumers. But their exclusion from the labour market over the past century and a half has caused their direct economic value to diminish, while their indirect economic value – as pesterers of parents, or as human capital for the future – has increased.
Viviana Zelizer, professor of sociology at Princeton University, who has written extensively about the social value of childhood, argues that the elimination of child labour ‘is key to understanding the profound transformation in the economic and sentimental value of children … The price of a useful wage-earning child was directly counterposed to the moral value of an economically useless but emotionally priceless child.’
So children’s ‘work’ was gradually reconceived as education and play. Their essential innocence was seen to be under threat from the adult world of employment, resulting in confinement at home and at school for the purposes of appropriate nurture. But here, they are left vulnerable to a damaging culture of competition, as both education and commerce thrive on separating children into winners and losers.
Meanwhile, Nicholas remains very good at maths, and undertakes a variety of other activities at which he is variously good, better or best. Last Friday, he sat his Grade One piano exam. He was quite nervous but he thinks it went well. You had to learn three pieces and do scales. He has piano lessons out of school, but flute lessons in school. ‘And me and my mum always put on a Christmas concert ’cos my mum plays the organ, cello, guitar, piano, and I play the flute, piano, recorder. I normally just play about three pieces on the piano, one on the flute, probably a few on the recorder. Mum will play one on the piano, one on the cello.’