damned day care

From today's Wall Street Journal:

"In very young children, even 10 hours of nonmaternal child care a week is linked to a weaker attachment, or bond, with the mother at 15 months old. But that is only if the mother also is highly insensitive, or unresponsive, to her child's needs. Child care wasn't linked to poorer bonding when mothers were sensitive and engaged. Researchers found similar results when they looked again at the same children at three years of age."

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't insensitivity and unresponsiveness seem like a fairly reliable recipe for weak attachment whether or not the kid's in daycare?

Posted by rebecca at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)

dishing

Before I had a baby I used to be a lazy ass. Every piddling effort I made to keep my house at a state above toxic dump level was seen as, well, a chore. But now that I’m a mother, more often than not, I’m grateful for any activity in which my mind can wander relatively undistracted. I'm a good multi-tasker, but not good enough (or maybe bad enough) to think productively while changing a diaper. So, after a day of baby, I'll often take cleaning up after dinner over cleaning up the kid. Suddenly, a sink full of dishes feels like freedom.

Posted by rebecca at 9:56 PM