Kids

For all you out there in my reading audience, I wish to impart some wisdom from this 50+ brain of mine. So if you hate hearing such things read no futher.
First my basis for my statements. Teaching young ones for about 12 years, raising four of my own, having my nephew for five years, and most of the research now coming out about young ones. So now my thoughts.
The first five years of a child's life can either give that child wings or cripple them for the next five. Day care (defined as one worker to six or more kids in an institutional setting) is the bane of a young child's development. Infants and pre-fives need face time with a loving parent, lots and lots of time. It is very difficult to see what difference it makes while that little one is still so tiny, the difference begins to show at five. Sons of mine, marry women commited to being the mothers of your children, or if they are not, marry someone who is willing to support you while you raise the babe...just don't put them into an institution for 30 to 60 hours a week from the age of six weeks. The complex development of the human brain is so beyond our knowing and needs careful tending. Even with careful tending things go wrong, how much more so when handed over to a stressed, underpaid, non emotionally invested woman or man, (no matter how well intentioned) in an enviroment with minimal stimulation. For futher reading on this subject I recommend, "High Risk, Children without a Conscience".
When one is young; career, living up to one's potential, making an impact in the world, seem paramount, raising a baby can seem so unimportant compared to these things, when one gets older, one realizes the most important and only eternal thing in this world we deal with are other people and the most important are the children we bring in this world. So that is what I wanted to say, not original nor even the best stated, but from the heart. MOM