In thinking about day care (or mass baby sitting) with a touch of conspiracy, I realized that the idea of the state raising all the children is almost realized. Day care providers take the role of surrogate parents in a very real way.
With almost no idealistic push at all, parents no longer have any say over morals, religion, ethics, skills, or any other traditional parenting role, this is being placed on the day care. In order to stay uncontroversial, day care (and schools) sanitize any mention of specific religion beliefs or anything else that can vary from family to family. In essence it takes away the individuality created by a warm loving home and replace it with a "safe place" that children spend all day. Since day care is regulated by the government, it is not much of a stretch to "regulate" specific beliefs and morals, completely removing God.
The part I find most odd is that parents are choosing it, and it is not being forced by governmental decree. I know of several parents who leave their children half asleep at the day care usually quite early so they will not be late to work. Then they come to pick up their children 10-14 hours later; for a preschool child this is almost their entire waking day, leaving the parents time enough to bathe and feed the child before sending them to bed to start over the next day.
I have also heard several mothers comment on how they work full time, are full time mothers, and know all about their children. I do not find this possible. My wife spends her day with our children, where I see them at lunch and in the evenings. I consider myself to know my children fairly well, but when we compare notes, I miss more than I would care to admit. I am not there for all the little advances like trying a new sound or learning to stand in the crib, I see it after it has happened. All of my children started saying da-da-da before ma-ma-ma (I don't know why), and then a short time later drop off the da-da-da. I miss so much already and I am very thankful that my wife has decided that she wants to be a full time mother first. It is no wonder that parents do not know their children (or that children do not know anything about their parents).
Another point that I find very scary is the cases in court where the grandparents are the day care and successfully sue for custody. It is only a small leap to say the day care fulfills all the roles of parents and to take over the guardianship of the children they keep. The only reason a day care cannot do this right now is financial, easily fixed by increasing a tax subsidy that has been in place for many years.
Who's raising our children? I can answer for me and my family, but I wonder if the day care workers were asked what the answer would be.
