Week 4 Post 2

I found the section on infant day care to be very interesting. It is stated that most infants are cared for by their mothers and the rest of them of usually cared for by their fathers. In other countries the rest are cared for by their grandmothers. About fifteen percent of infants receive regular care from a non- relative worldwide. On the other hand, in the U.S. only twenty percent of infants are cared for exclusively by their mothers in the first year. This statistic really surprised me because I did not realize that there were that many babies were not cared for by their mothers at such a young age. It states that maternal employment and national policy have an impact. In the United States, the paid leave is much shorter than in other countries such as England where mothers have a paid leave for a year. If the parents do choose to put their infant in daycare (excluding relatives of the infant), there are two options. The first option is family day care in which the care occurs in the home of someone whom the child is not related to. The second is center day care in which the caregivers are licensed and paid to take care of the children in a place designed for children. Research shows that infants with extensive non-maternal care tend to be more aggressive later on. This was very surprising to me because I did not think that this would be a result of non-maternal care. If I had to guess, I would have said that it would cause the child to have a less secure attachment to their parents.