Day Care

Over at Amitai Etzioni's blog, I noticed a link to this page. I'm not planning on dropping my baby off at day care - nor am I dumping the job on my wife. We're going to work together with the baby, as long as possible.

I'm not sure if it's a bad decision to use day care centers, but the page linked to certainly thinks so (makes me wonder what Arch-Authoritarian Amitai thinks himself of it all). What does pique my interest is that while in exile in Mongolia (another story), I had conversations with some Australian girls who, when I noted that a cousin of mine left in daycare is a little odd, were quick to strongly defend the institution.

Yes, it's great that women can work. But I'm not sure if it's great to leave a baby with strangers in a germ-farm. Men can stay home and care for baby too, as well as women. Yes, it hurts careers, but is a career the only thing you're after? For the moment, I'm content to earn considerably less money if I can be with my family as much as possible, confident that we can adjust our living to below our means, and that we're surrounded by loving, caring people who won't let us starve and die.