http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/03/26/childcare_behavior/index.html
The telling thing about the Times article (which there is no direct link to, because the Times sucks like that) is that it goes on and on at length, just like the survey, about how mothers putting their children in daycare is bad for them.
Mothers putting their children in daycare.
Mothers.
We are educated in the use of loaded verbiage like this from a young age. A study on the link between poor behavior and day care will, obviously, focus on its relation to motherhood - because we're taught to believe parenting is woman's work.
One of the most fulfilling, enriching things someone can do - male or female - is to raise a child. It is the ultimate test of one's moral foundations to try and bring an independent life into the world in their image.
This is a perfect illustration of What The Patriarchy Takes Away From Men: the ability to give a shit without being derided as a pansy. This goes down as deep as giving a shit about society being in the toilet and not wanting to rape the Earth or your neighbors with incessant greed. Welfare is referred to, derisively, as 'the nanny state'; even studies reported by fairly liberal bodies like the Paper of Record, when confronted with the difficulties of childrearing, default to talking about working mothers.
Working fathers are every bit as much of a challenge to the concept of modern child-rearing, which requires that a child be lavished with as much attention and care as humanly possible, as working mothers. The only difference is that, thanks to the patriarchial system dividing men and women, we are made into draft mules and they are made into brood sows - so we do not even bat an eye when thinking about men abandoning their children for most of their working day. This isn't a conscious decision by the Times editor, who would probably blanch at the idea of being called misogynist. This is something so deeply ingrained that most people never even think about it.
This is one of the many things patriarchy takes away from men: fatherly pride. In the words of the immortal Bart Simpson: Ha ha, you love a boy.
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As I understand it, I was a 'daycare baby' by the parameters of this study. Because my mother is a nurse, and my father stayed home and took care of us kids.
Am I any the worse for it? Absolutely not. I had the love, care, and respect of my parents, and both of them contributed greatly to my upbringing -- regardless of what gender the parent I spent my time with was.
On the feminist blogs, there's an acronym for what we're discussing here -- TPHMT, The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. I understand the desire to focus on the effects of patriarchy on women, but it's good to have a strong feminist voice from men. Kind of covering the same ground that was lost after the collapse of the "liberated male" movement of the seventies.
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