Should both parents go out and work when their children are very young?
That’s not an easy question to answer. For many women, leaving their young children with a sitter, a grandparent, or a day care center is the only alternative to having no children at all. These days women tend to marry later and be established in their careers before they have children. In that circumstance, giving up the career is much more difficult than it would be for younger mothers who have not established a career path. My personal preference is for moms to stay at home with their children until the children are school age. However, sometimes–single-parent families, for example–that’s not possible. There have been many studies on the effect of day-care settings on child development that indicate that the experience can be a neutral or positive one. Families where all available parents are employed can be confident that if they select a licensed, state-approved day care facility that they have visited at multiple, random times and are comfortable with, their children will not
