The Juggle Ramps Up Anxiety for Working Mothers

A couple of weeks ago psychologist Alison Gopnik wrote a widely read editorial in The New York Times about how babies learn.  Her conclusion wasn’t earth-shattering — in fact many of us knew this already — we don’t need fancy toys or learning programs to encourage our children to learn at a young age.  As Gopnik says:

Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cellphones and computers…(Imagine how much money we can save on “enriching” toys and DVDs!)…what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly are the people around them…Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.

Of course, what should be a reassuring bit of research for working parents who can’t afford special enrichment programs for babies is just the opposite in the wrong hands.  Emily Friedlander at The Wall Street Journal‘s The Juggle seems to want working parents to feel anxious about these “new” findings:

[Gopnik's conclusions are] good news for strapped parents who don’t have the resources to…shell out hundreds on baby classes. But maybe less good news for working parents trying to ensure their kids are learning when they’re not around. It’s simple to send your kid off to classes a few times a week. But how do you tell the nanny to make sure your baby gets exposure to “real-world objects” and “safe replicas”?

Gopnik’s research takes pressure off working parents, not the other way around.  If learning drills and complicated lessons were really effective, that would be something we would need to train caregivers to implement in the home or at daycare centers.  But playing with every day objects and toys should be the bare minimum you can expect from a good sitter.  Simply having these objects in the house and giving your caregiver the freedom to allow the baby to “free play” for some time each day seems like it would meet Gopnik’s criteria for a good learning environment.

The WSJ piece troubled me: why take findings that offer a positive and reassuring take on childcare, and use them to promote unnecessary anxiety for working parents?  The piece even went so far as to use the headline “What Your Baby Is (or Isn’t) Learning When You’re Not Around.”  As if scores of working parents are failing their kids because they aren’t around to promote stimulating free-play.

The WSJ author also extrapolates Gopnik’s sentence about “enriching toys and DVDs” to extend to the classses that parents schedule for their children and sitters.  I wonder whether Friedlander has ever been to these classes?  Most actually support Gopnik’s vision.  They put babies in a new environment and allow them to explore safely; there are no Itsy-Bitsy Spider drills or tumbling exams.  Sitters meet other sitters and children meet other children who they can see outside of the classes.  These are important benefits — and Gopnik doesn’t for a minute suggest that have a baby at home playing with the same toys all day is a good idea.

Perhaps this is the role of the media; to take issues and explore them from every possible angle.  But it seems like for mothers, and especially working mothers, “exploring the issues” means promoting unnecessary stress and worry.  In this case, the WSJ’s veiled suggestion is that parents really should be home to make sure their children are being maximally stimulated by mixing bowls, dolls, and cardboard boxes.  There are many things that I feel strongly about being present for in my child’s life, but playing with mixing bowls is one that I think our capable sitter can handle.

Related links:

• Listen to an interview with Alison Gopnik on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show.
• Denise Schipani at Confessions of a Mean Mommy writes about why she never went to Mommy & Me classes, and touches on some more salient reasons they might not work for some parents — scheduling, fitting in and boredom with the activities.
• Comments from DaddyTypes on Gopnik’s work here and here.
• Leo Babauta at Zen Habits writes about turning schooling on its head to better prepare kids for our new world. I don’t agree with everything here, but it’s an interesting perspective.