30 SUNDAY INSIGHT FEBRUARY 8, 2009 HERALD ON SUNDAY

HOS

MOTHER OF ALLMore children arebeing enrolled inchildcare weeks afterbeing born, givingNew Zealand one ofthe highest childcarerates in the world.Sarah Langinvestigates.

SVELTE: FrenchJustice ministerRachida Datiattends a weeklyFrench CabinetMeeting atElysee Palacedays after givingbirth. WIREIMAGE

WORKINGMUM: GeraldineWest with sonLukas at daycarecentre.

DOUG SHERRING

WHEN FRENCH justiceminister Rachida Dati wasphotographed on her wayto a cabinet meeting

looking svelte, sophisticated and stress-free last month, five days after givingbirth to daughter Zohra, women’sgroups were quick to jump aboard ajudgmental bandwagon.

Why’s she back at work so soon?How could she foist her newbornoff on to someone else? Where are

her priorities, her maternal instincts?Catapulted from one pigeonhole

to another, the sudden tabloidfavourite has gone from being

France’s most famous solo mumto its most talked-aboutworking mum.

But the 43-year-old hasstayed, well, mum, on why she‘‘courted controversy’’ (toquote Wikipedia) by goingback to work so soon. Whilecommentators havesuggested she didn’t want toexpose her portfolio or achink in her armour, we’lllikely never know her

reasons or anymisgivings unlessshe spills all to a

women’s magone day.

That doesn’tstop the world atlarge fromspeculating. Frombirthing tobreastfeeding, justabout everyone has

an opinion on baby matters —and most don’t hesitate to offerit.

‘‘From the moment you getpregnant, you immediately haveto listen to other people tellingyou how you should do things,’’says direct-marketing specialist

Felicity Christie, 40, who lives inRemuera, Auckland with

businessman husband Stuart andtheir two children.

As soon as she put Alice, 2, andLorimer, 6, in Remuera’s SteppingStones childcare centre, each at 5months, she copped flak. ‘‘It’s like, ifyou don’t stay home with yourchild, you must not be as good amum.’’

Former prime minister HelenClark faced outrage when shepromised dawn-to-duskchildcare in a bid to woowomen back into

employment for the good of theeconomy. ‘‘We need more workers,’’she said.

There are childcare centres nowwith refrigerators full of bottles ofexpressed breast milk, each labelledwith the baby’s name.

Parents often pop into centresduring the day, both to check in andchat. They will be given detailedinformation: how much milk theirbaby has drunk, how many nappychanges.

Centres have specialist staff, mostof whom have completed earlychildhood qualifications or arestudying towards them.

For under-2s, the Ministry ofEducation requires a minimum of oneadult to four children, so they’ll begetting plenty of individual attention.And you can forget those check-inphonecalls: two-year-old businessTinyTelly, set up in Auckland and FarNorth childcare centres with plans toexpand this year, provides anxiousparents with webcam visits.

A record 11,000 Kiwi babies agedunder 12 months are enrolled inchildcare, as more and more mothersdecide that for whatever personal,professional or financial reasons,they need to go back to work.

Those mothers (and it’s usually themothers) court the same controversyas Dati. Every mother interviewed saysthere’s a strong social expectation youshould stay home for your baby’s firstyear.

Geraldine West, a 25-year-oldreceptionist and administrator fromWest Auckland’s Henderson Heights,faced down criticism after going backto work (first part-time, now four-days-a-week) when Lukas, now aged 1, was4 months old. ‘‘My workmates wereabsolutely horrified that I was puttinghim in daycare so young.’’

With a similar timeframe plannedfor her second child, due in July, thecomments keep coming. ‘‘Somestrong-minded friends have told me Ishould take a year off with this one,and the girls I met through coffeegroup say ‘Don’t you feel you shouldbe back home?’. I reply ‘Well why?What’s the point’?’’

Waikato management consultantAngela McDonald got the samereaction from stay-at-home mumswhen she returned to work after hertwo children, Kendall, 3, and Cullen, 11months, were born. Cullen was just 11weeks when she began working part-time, leaving her baby son with a friend

one day a week. By the

time he was 4 months he had joinedhis sister at ABC Te Rapa in Hamiltonfour days a week.

McDonald has no qualms aboutleaving her children in daycare.Kendall, she says, is thriving.

‘‘She loves it. She’s such a socialbutterfly and she’s getting aneducation at the same time.’’

And adding McDonald’s salary tohusband Karn’s technician wagemeans the family can afford ‘‘life’s littleluxuries.’

‘‘If I didn’t work we couldn’trenovate, have our nice house, orholidays with the kids.’’

People parrot neuroscientificstudies warning that consistent, stableand stimulating relationships with adedicated caregiver in the earlymonths are critical to healthy brainand emotional development.Preferably, they say, babies shouldform a close bond with mum in theirfirst 12 months (some studies suggestthe first three years), and childcaredamages that bond.

Staying at home was never in thestars for National party matriarchMichelle Boag (now an Auckland PRrecruitment specialist) after sonMatthew’s 1987 birth. Working as JimBolger’s press secretary at the time, her

FEBRUARY 8, 2009 HERALD ON SUNDAY SUNDAY INSIGHT 31HOS

CHOICES ‘‘If I didn’t work wecouldn’t renovate,have our nice house,or holidays with thekids.’’

ANGELA McDONALD

BIG BROOD: Brad Pitt and Angelina Joliewith their children at Narita InternationalAirport in Japan. AP

DAY CARE: Angela McDonald picks up her children Cullen, 11 months and Kendall, 3, from ABC Learning Centre childcare inTe Rapa, Hamilton. STEPHEN BARKER.

waters broke 10 days early.Boag says she ‘‘went to work for a

few hours in the early morning anddropped off notes for everybody, thendrove myself to the hospital’’.Hospitalised for a week after acaesarean, she made some workphonecalls from her hospital bed, thenworked from home before returning tothe office.

From 12 weeks to 3-years-old,Matthew was looked after in the homeof a carer who had children herself,sometimes for 16-hour stretches.

‘‘If I’d been able to take maternityleave I would’ve still gone straight backto work,’’ says Boag. ‘‘Women knowthemselves whether they’d be betteroff at work or home.’’

On the other hand, TV maven JulieChristie says she went back to workthe day after having her first child,‘‘but it was a mistake and I would notadvise anyone else to do so’’.

Michelle Taylor, an Auckland writerwho stayed home with her twochildren, agrees: ‘‘You’re so importantto your children and theirdevelopment that if you can possiblystay at home with them you should.For us it was a real struggle financially,but I think people forget childrenaren’t commodities that can be leftalone to appreciate in value. They’remore like vege gardens that need lotsof attention every day.’’

Despite the studies and strongopinions, between 1990 and 2005 thenumber of Kiwi kids in childcare underthe age of 3 doubled. The list of babiesstarting daycare before their firstbirthday — some at just a few weeksold — has increased by nearly 30 percent over the past decade, to about11,000.

A Unicef report states that childcarerates for New Zealand’s pre-schoolersare among the highest in the world.Ninety two per cent of 3-to-6 year olds,and a third of children under 3,enrolled in early childhood education(ECE), well ahead of OECD averages.

New Zealand babies are the firstgeneration spending long periods oftheir childhoods cared for outside thehome. ‘‘Many see nothing wrong without-of-home childcare beginning atthree months,’’ the study says. Whileit’s generally accepted that quality ECEadvantages 3 and 4-year-oldsacademically and socially, not everymum will wait until her child is 3, 2 oreven 1 before returning to work.

Statistics New Zealand figures show35 per cent of mothers with childrenaged under 1 year also hold down a

job. ‘‘This report rings alarm bells andit’s a real wake-up call for us in NewZealand,’’ says Unicef New Zealanddomestic advocacy manager BarbaraLambourn. Given the neuroscientificevidence, she’s worried childcare’sstarting too early: ‘‘Earlier and earlierchildcare has been described as amassive uncontrolled experiment withour children as the subjects.’’

Facing bad press and socialpressure for not being with theirbabies 24/7, many working mums arefeeling judged and guilty.

‘‘The guilt never stops,’’ says Feli-city Christie, who feels lucky that on-and-off contract work lets her spendchunks of time with her kids inbetween jobs.

Not swallowing the theory thatchildcare damages the mother-childrelationship, her take is that qualitytime throughout childhood, includingschool-age years, is the bastion of astrong relationship.

She spends many hours with herkids in the mornings, late afternoons,evenings and weekends. But onweekdays, with none of her children’sgrandparents around to help out, sherelies on childcare.

While some might imaginechildcare as a tribe of kids running riotwith a few school-leavers or croneskeeping half-an-eye on them, smallinteractive centres with qualified carersare the norm.

Whether they’re standard daycarecentres (55 per cent of enrolments),

shorter-hour kindergartens (23 percent), parent-participating playcentres(eight per cent), Maori-languagekohanga reo (five per cent) or thequickest-growing sector, home-basedcare (seven per cent), all implement anational ECE curriculum and arestrictly licensed, regulated, monitoredand reviewed.

Expert opinion is that childcare’srole is expanding from a practical to asocial support as it replaces traditionalhelp from grandparents and extendedfamily. ‘‘Opinions are heated on thisbut it’s just whatever works for youand your child,’’ says Christie, whothrives at work while a friend lovesbeing a stay-at-home mum.

And while job commitment is onereason new mums return to work,don’t go assuming they’re all rushingto jump back on the corporate ladder.

A government-commissionedstudy, Decisions about caring andworking, finds key factors in whyparents return to paid work are beliefs

about parental-and-family care ofchildren, attitudes towards formal ECEservices and informal childcare;intellectual stimulation, personalsatisfaction, feeling valued and money.

Because, while actor Angelina Joliecan afford oodles of time off and ananny for each child on herpaycheques alone, for most people theaverage working wage isn’t enough tosupport a couple, a new addition andall the associated costs.

Although childcare costs eats upmuch of the extra income, the surplusoften makes all the difference. ForWest, it’s the difference betweengetting by and scraping by.

If they had only one income, frombuilder-partner Graham, ‘‘we’d beliving payday to payday’’.

With the rising cost of living, arecession, job-cut fears and ourrelatively-scanty 14 weeks of paidparental leave, is it any wonder thatnew mums are returning to paid workquicksmart?

ECE researcher Dr Sarah Farquhar,the recently-appointed chief executiveof the Early Childhood Council, isn’tjust looking at the issue from afar. Amother-of-five, Farquhar put her firstchild into childcare at 3 months andfollowed suit with the others, theyoungest of whom is now 2 years.

She’s critical of how thegovernment dangles ‘‘financial carrots’’(including the 20-free-hours policy for3-and-4-year-olds ).

Farquhar says government is‘‘moving too fast’’ towards a getting-mums-back-into-the-workforceideology. When it comes down to thismother-of-all decision there are nohard-and-fast rules.

Says Felicity Christie: ‘‘It boils downto people’s choices: choices you havethe right to make for you and yourchild. And whoever the mum is,Rachida Dati or your neighbour, youcan’t make comparisons or even startto understand or judge them. You’renot in their world.’’

6703167AA

LIFESTYLE LOGIC LIMITED, 156 BUSH ROAD, ALBANY, AUCKLANDPO BOX 303 164 NORTH HARBOUR, AUCKLAND 0175PHONE 09 415 0559 FAX 09 448 5792 EMAIL SALES@PESTROL.CO.NZ WEB WWW.PUREHEALTH.COM

With 100% Natural Pyrethrins PESTROL is GUARANTEED to WORK!PESTROL REPELS FLIES, ANTS, MOSQUITOES, WASPS, MOTHS, FLEAS, DUST MITES,

COCKROACHES AND OTHER FLYING AND CRAWLING INSECTS

PESTROL refi ll cans now available for most DISPENSERS� REGULAR Cans fi t Robocan/Innovair/Raid � SLIMLINE Cans fi t Ecomist units � CHUBBY Cans fi t Xpra units

BIG SAVINGS ON RETAIL PRICES! Save up to 20% per can on retail prices when you buy 4 or more cans direct!Suitable for home, offi ce, restaurant, day care etc.

Includes 6 185gm X - Chubby Pestrol Refi ll Cans

plus a PestrolUltra Dispenser

Only $130.00

inclusive of p+pFully Programmable

$22.50 $18.00 $19.00

ORDER ONLINE TODAY WWW.PESTROL.CO.NZAUSTRALIAN SALES WWW.PESTROL.COM.AU

Pestrol Automatic Insect Control System

New model New model Dispenser Dispenser

just released!!!just released!!!

6703167AA