I am a stay-at-home mom of an active 8-month-old, and I feel fortunate that my husband and I can get by on one income. Making the decision to not use day care was very difficult and still something we struggle with each month as we write out those checks for our bills. Many, many parents do not have the luxury of that choice, so what can they do? How is this information of any use? Maybe the study put out by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will incite serious searches for solutions rather than the usual finger-pointing and guilt-inducing discussions ... but I won't hold my breath.

-- Elena Gustavson

As a working mom, I feel Jennifer Sweeney is on target with her criticism of the NICHD. I'd like to see a study of these same, supposedly more aggressive children as teenagers and adults. Perhaps they are the Bill Gateses of the world "bullying" IBM to invest in new technology.

-- Marilois Snowman

I guess Salon isn't willing to even conceive of the possibility that the epidemic of parents placing their children in day care as soon as they can causes negative consequences for the child.

To say that it's better to be smart and cheeky instead of stupid and placid shows that you have no concept of the responsibility having a child entails. The growth industry of child care is a symptom of a culture that "wants to have its cake and eat it too": People want to say they have children, but they don't want to inconvenience their lives by having them. So off the children go to the day-care center.

Before you even begin to mutter, "But some families need both parents working, and what about the single moms and dads out there?" I will counter that the majority of families do not need day care. Yes, there are many people who, through their own poor choices or through no fault of their own, do not have a spouse to help them raise a child. For those, day care is a necessary evil, for they have to work to support not only themselves and their children but also the fact that they have to work.

The rest of the families out there need to take a step back, realize they don't need the new car, the $250,000 house, the extra cable goodies, the takeout or eat-in restaurant food, the summer vacation every year, etc. We all crave luxuries, and to have a child is the greatest luxury of all: one that makes all others pale in comparison. Most families can make it on one salary, contrary to the popular culture. It just takes living within a budget (which no one seems to want to do these days from the amount of consumer debt that is reported each year) and sacrificing certain things for the benefit of your children.

-- Chris Comisac

Why do the NICHD researchers think that day care is the cause of the observed aggression? Isn't there a chance it's the other way around: that badly behaved kids are more likely to get put into day care, and more likely to be left there for more hours a day than well-behaved ones?

Some parents don't have a choice about day care. Some parents do -- and they may also have a choice about how long they leave the child at the day-care center. In fact, if a child is a true pain in the butt, I can easily see parents making financial sacrifices to get that kid into day care, when they'd be more likely to keep a "nice" child at home. Is it any wonder that day-care centers might accumulate a preponderance of problem children? And that the children who stay home with Mom happen to be the ones who are well-enough behaved not to drive Mom crazy?

Duh.

It is, of course, possible that separation from Mom does cause behavior problems. The way to test for that would be a study of identical twins where one twin was randomly assigned to go to day care while the other stayed home with Mom. If such a study turned up meaningful differences, then we could say we'd actually learned something. Until such a study is done, I don't know how NICHD can say that day care causes aggression. The opposite interpretation -- that aggressive kids are more likely to be sent to day care -- is just too plausible to ignore.

-- James Alan Gardner

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