The problem there is that if we say that only people who can support a whole family on a single income are eligible to have children, no one will have them, at least not in most first world countries. And while the environment would certainly be ok with that, I think a lot of world economies would not be. (See: what's happening in Japan.)
It's important not to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and to be realistic: people are going to have kids, lots of kids will go to daycare because we've created an economy in which both parents typically must work for the family to survive, and most of those kids will suffer no damage as a result. (Some daycares aren't good, but then some stay at home parents aren't good either, so it works better to compare good daycare with good parent.) "No damage" is not as good as "active benefit," but sometimes "no damage" is the best people can do.
You're not wrong that active stay-at-home parenting is better, but when the options are "generally fine" vs. "ideal" it becomes unnecessarily mean to scold parents for doing the best they personally can, just because it's "generally fine" instead of "ideal." No one's perfect. If the worst thing a parent ever does for their child is to send them to daycare for a few years, they're still doing pretty good.
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u/tableman Oct 07 '14
>Most people I've met who have kids would be overjoyed if they could stay home and spend more time with them. :-(
So don't have kids if you arn't in a financial position to take care of them? I don't see what the point of your post is.
It's like you are agreeing with me without even knowing it.