ried partners both work. And the 1999 Council of Economic Advisors reported highlighted the fact that parents have twenty-two fewer hours per week to spend at home, as compared with the average in 1969. The media never questions why fathers want careers, and rarely if ever imply that their presence in the workplace is bad for their children. Yet for years, media outlets have often spread the idea that working mothers who leave their children in childcare services are abandoning their kids in order to pursue their own interests. By taking data about working mothers out of economic context, by profiling primarily white-collar professionals, and by focusing on the ages of women's babies when they returned to work ("just a month old"!), the media uses what the LA Times called “a subtle bashing of working moms as maternally lacking”. Whether mothers work out of financial necessity, personal desire or a combination of the two, they deserve better. It has been proven that children who spend time in quality day care do at least as well and often better in psychosocial development, intelligence, and academic achievement as opposed to children raised at home by both parents (Sullivan & Thompson, 1994). Also children exposed to quality day care perform equally well in verbal and cognitive skills, creativity, social competence, and cooperation. Unfortunately, the supply of quality, affordable childcare in California does not match the demand. The result is that families like mine pay $1000.00 a month or more for quality service. The overwhelming majority of Americans say two things about the much-discussed "time-bind" dilemma: that they would arrange things so that they can take care of their own kids if they felt it were a viable option; and that if they have to depend on nonparental care for whatever reason, they would prefer not to have to rely on commercial daycare. The survey data and polling numbers are revealing: Public Age...
