Children Need Mom And Dad, Not McDaycare

A new report confirms what pro-family organizations have been saying for decades: that children are better off when both parents are around; that sole custody robs the children of the love of one parent; that today's legal system is out of touch with the needs of children and treats them like property to be won or lost.

Especially devastating are the long-term effects of court orders that essentially cut one parent out of children's lives – usually the dad – in a misguided effort to foster peace between warring parents, the report says.

Citing a host of North American studies, Kruk's report points to the long-term dangers: Some 85 per cent of youth in prison are fatherless; 71 per cent of high school dropouts grew up without fathers, as did 90 per cent of runaway children. Fatherless youth are also more prone to depression, suicide, delinquency, promiscuity, drug abuse, behavioural problems and teen pregnancy, warns the 84-page report, a compilation of dozens of studies around divorce and custody, including some of his own research over the past 20 years.

"Parent-child bonds are formed through daily routines – preparing breakfast, taking the child to school, having dinner, getting ready for bed. Without that, it's very difficult for parents to have any real connection with their kids," Kruk said in a telephone interview from B.C. "It's so destructive for children to have a loving parent removed from their lives."

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Those who claim that the nuclear family is gone and that we better get used to it, propose a state-run universal daycare system as a solution. They believe that an all-day kindergarten could become a viable substitute for a traditional family and they often refer to an inevitable tax hike that would be required to finance such a system as "investment", claiming that each tax dollar "invested" in McDaycares will pay off tenfold on a long run. The reality however is different:

Over £3 billion of Sure Start in the U.K. resulted in worse outcomes for the target population of children of low-income single mothers, according to the £20 million assessment.

And for fulfilled promises of improved “social cohesion,” don’t look to race-riot prone France where over 90% of children attend state preschool.

Here, Quebec’s program is admitted to be neither universal nor high quality. Christa Japel of the Universite de Montreal found 71% of daycare children in “minimal” or worse care, yet she still clings to the promises.

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And Sweden, the "daycare Nirvana" isn't any better. So, as Helen Ward explains in her National Post article, all-day kindergarten turns out to be yet another investment scam. Instead of "investing" in universal daycare, we better invest in families, first and foremost - by reworking the laws and tax rules to strengthen the traditional family, instead of than undermining it. Because children need mom and dad, not McDaycare.