Child Care Today

Starred review from December 1, 2008
Venerable British child psychologist Leach, author of the classic Your Baby & Child
, addresses the overarching question of who is caring for today's children. Based on current research (including her own longitudinal study conducted by Families, Children & Child Care in the U.K.), Leach reports that nonparental child care is an indisputable fact of modern life, and that “discussing whether it is bad for children is no more useful than discussing whether we would all be better off without television or the Internet.” The question, instead, is “How can we make any part of children's lives that they spend in child care good for them?” Urging the abandonment of outdated 1950s standards—when most mothers cared for their children at home—Leach blames attitude even more than scanty financial resources for lack of progress. She examines numerous child care options, from au pairs to day care centers, probing the difficult, exhausting decisions that parents face. She also compares and contrasts the child care practices of various countries, noting, for instance, that the U.S. has no mandatory paid maternity leave while in Sweden mothers are offered 480 days with 80% of their monthly wage. Until we embrace children as everyone's responsibility, Leach insists, the “working/caring conundrum” will continue to plague parents, and society will forgo the high dividends that result when an investment is made in quality child care.

January 22, 2009
Verdict: Leach movingly argues that it is "because we haven't abandoned the attitudes of 1959 that we are finding it so difficult to move forward in 2009." Unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, this is highly recommended for academic libraries and should be required reading for those involved in policymaking regarding children and families. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/08.] Background: Internationally acclaimed author Leach (Your Baby and Child) presents a dense and exhaustive summary of the current state of child care in major English speaking countries, lamenting that we are still looking over our shoulders for sole mother care as the gold standard. Relying on two major child care studies (NICHD-America; FCCC-British), she scientifically defines what type of care is available, who is using which type and why, and what the strengths and weaknesses are of each at various stages of childhood. She explains what the research can and cannot tell us (e.g., there are no census statistics on stay-at-home moms because they aren't relevant to the labor force); and policy comparisons with overseas countries and their implications are outlined. The United States is pathetically behind other countries in most aspects of child care (mainly because it is structured more by parental work than service to children), but the raising of standards is prohibitively difficult owing to minimal regulation and limited public funding. Leach argues that asking whether child care is bad for children is asking the wrong question altogether and that we are guilty of assuming that the answer to bad child care is no child care.-Julianne J. Smith, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2009
Leach, author of the wildly popular Your Baby and Child, which has sold more than two million copies since first being published in 1978 (revised in 1997), delivers another parenting tome that will likely become the standard by which all other child-care books are measured. This thoroughly researched, heavily footnoted compendium evaluates the state of child care in the Western world in the context of caring for children (as opposed to rearing children). The rapidly changing makeup of the postindustrial world means the needs of families are changing rapidly, too, and Leach covers the topic in four parts: Child Care Today, which defines the term and puts it into a cultural context; Types of Child Care, which breaks down into two general types: Family Care (parents, grandparents, or live-in help) and Formal Care (day cares, before and after school, etc.); Quality of Care, which looks at the issue from various viewpoints and helps outline how to choose child care; and Moving On, which examines the politics and future of child care.Though Leachs writing is precise and scientific, reflecting her training at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, she somehow keeps the narrative approachable and interesting. Her plea for looking at child care as an investment rather than an expense (well-raised children make well-adjusted adults, after all) comes through loud and clear and makes perfect sense no matter your political persuasion. Theres no doubt Child Care Today will become the bible on the subject. Stock up.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)