Marianne Donahue Perchlik: Care of young children involves much more than the basics – vtdigger.org

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Marianne Donahue Perchlik, of Montpelier, who is an early childhood teacher and parent educator at the Child’s Garden in Montpelier. She is the mother of three young adult children with her husband, state Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington.

Many of us believe we should have access to universal, quality, affordable child care. We don’t currently have it, whether or not we think we should. In the meantime, what kind of care represents quality care?

We need to advocate for specific characteristics in both indoor and outdoor environments, such as access to free open spaces and not just yards with climbing equipment; provide staff who are not just trained in how to prevent basic calamities, but who can cultivate self initiative and enthusiasm; and we need to facilitate the care and upkeep of the distinctive organizations who are providing these invaluable services. Finally, we must remember that parenting is a skill set that is learned by doing, so our approach must include consideration of more flexible employment as well as other support for parents in their homes.

Choices in a care environments impact the long-term health of our children. Care environments affect the sleep habits of our children, fundamental to long- and short-term health of both children and their parents. Care environments can elicit strides of strong self initiated movement, or entirely inhibit movement.

Meaningful quality care may demand changes in a parent’s employment or career. It may require participation on a committee or board of directors. It may require more substantive support of parents in their care of their children. If parents can’t attend to these matters, who will serve these vital roles to hold up the care environments of our youngest children and their newborn parents?

When we think about the quality of child care we ought to begin with a recognition that habits form the template of our entire health and well being. Any repetitive activity quickly becomes a habit in a young child. Habitual activity from the early years of 0-21 can become a very strong foundation of self-actualization, or an obstacle course of destructive and distractive habits to overcome. This sounds like two sides of a coin, but in reality everyone receives some of each from their early life.

As we consider care of children in infancy and the very early years, something we must understand deeply is that there is a reciprocal activity that takes place in caring for others. Birth makes us a parent forever, but it is the care of our children that teaches us to parent. As we breathe together and live in close proximity, we bond, learning the subtle cues and gestures of human communication as well as language skills. Both infants and parents learn these cues, gestures and language. This bonding is a living sustaining source essential to human health and development.

We now know that impacts in attachment and bonding directly impact life long health. We must consider the amount of child care, the number of hours in care that facilitate whole health including supporting the bond between parent and child, not just the demands of the workplace. To deny this now well known, well researched foundation of health is to invite future disease. Our approach to quality child care must include employer flexibility, career counseling, financial counseling, equal to provisions for quality child care placement in well staffed facilities that provide meaningful outdoor as well as indoor space.

We appear to be rushing to meet many economic and political demands of parents who struggle to build lives that feed their families. Yet is this rush taking into account genuine, informed care for the developmental stages of the children and the parents who are still becoming parents?