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CNN Talkback Live

Does Daycare Create Aggressive Kids?

Aired April 23, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Is daycare turning kids into bullies?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY BELSKY, BIRBECK COLLEGE: The more time the children spend in any kind of non-maternal child care across the infancy, toddler and pre-school years, the more aggressive and disobedient.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: That's the finding of researchers at the National Institute of Child Health.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FELIX SANCHEZ, PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT: I think it's insulting to dads, because the study said that child care, which included dads or family members or nannies or Head Start, was not as good as moms' care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were not able to determine why or how lots of time child care comes to be related to aggression and disobedience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: On the positive side, children in high quality daycare who are talked to, read to and taught show better language skills and have better short-term memory than those who spend the day less stimulated or watching television. And critics quickly point out aggressive children could just be more confident in social settings and have in place skills that make them leaders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think a lot of women our age want to work, and studies like this are disturbing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Does it matter who's mothering your child?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. Will daycare turn your toddler into an aggressive kid? That federally funded study is making a lot of people nervous these days. It seems to suggest that no one matters as much as mom. Now we will hear what child experts have to say about it just a little later on in the show, and we'll also talk to one of the study investigators. We're having a little trouble with our shot from Wisconsin, so as soon as we get that, we'll talk to her and get some more specifics on this study.

In the meantime, Jennifer Foote Sweeney is with us. She is the lifestyle editor at Salon.com.

Jennifer, thank you for being there.

JENNIFER FOOTE SWEENEY, SALON.COM: Thank you for having me.

BATTISTA: You -- we should say that you were a little bit hacked off about this study when it came out because you felt it kind of left mothers just twisting in the wind. What were your objections to it?

SWEENEY: Well, my objections really are not with the study itself. You know, I'm delighted that there is a study about child care. Obviously, it's extremely important. My problem is with what I feel is sort of an irresponsible management of the information that's coming out of the study. There's actually no basis for a conclusion of the kind that's being made about this study.

BATTISTA: I think Janet Parshall is with us, too, now.

Janet, are you there, host of "Janet Parshall's America," a syndicated radio show by Salem Radio Network? Good to see you.

JANET PARSHALL, SALEM RADIO NETWORK: Hi, Bobbie. It's wonderful to be with you, thanks.

BATTISTA: How did you interpret this study? Are we supposed to make the assumption then that moms should stay at home if they can?

PARSHALL: Well, you know, Bobbie, I've been watching this study unfold chapter by chapter, and every single time we learn something more from this federally funded study, we discover something that's old, eternal, penumbral the courts refer to that mommy-child connection.

Here's what we know. We know that babies come into this world wired to be loved by their mama, that they want mama more than anybody else on the face of the earth. And the reason these studies come out and the reason they're always so controversial is because every discussion about child care involves two very important issues. One is guilt, because the working mother says, "Oh, oh, now what do I do?," and the other is money. Child care in this country is a huge business. There's about 13 million kids who are in child care in this country.

And this is not, by the way, something that can be affixed to an agenda or special interest group. Remember, this is a neutral study, Jay Belsky, the principal researcher, basically telling us: Now look, more hours spent in daycare, more increased aggressive activity. That says to us mommy and child bond together. You break, disrupt, interrupt that bond, and you've got some real problems in behavior. BATTISTA: Well, the one thing that didn't make the headlines as much, which is sort of curious in and of itself, was that this was a good news-bad news study, because the good news was that if the child did receive quality daycare, that socialization skills, language skills, these sorts of things, were much better. And that didn't receive, you know, hardly any attention at all, in which case, that could have been the headline, since 83 percent of the kids came out OK.

SWEENEY: There were actually lots of items in the study that were not made public. For instance, the aspect of fathers being at home with their children somehow not being adequate or appropriate or at least as appropriate as being at home with their mothers. That was a conclusion that was made. And, in fact, if you talk to researchers on the study, what they'll tell you is they have such a tiny sample of children at home with their fathers that there's absolutely no way you can make that conclusion from this study.

PARSHALL: Here's what we can conclude from the study, though, Bobbie, and that is what we did discover in terms of this ever- increasing aggressive activity, it didn't make any difference whether it was a good center, a bad center, didn't make any difference what the socioeconomic background was of the particular mom, and it had everything to do with an "expedential" relationship between more hours in child care and increased manifestation of aggression. That is a red flag. We as a people, we as a culture, we as moms cannot look the other way on this.

SWEENEY: It's actually not a red flag, though, because if you look at the study and you look at the percentage they're talking about, they're talking about 17 percent, which is in fact, normal. The level of aggression they're talking about is completely normal.

PARSHALL: Actually, that's not true, Jennifer. That's not true at all.

SWEENEY: In fact, it is true.

(CROSSTALK)

PARSHALL: In fact, if you go back...

SWEENEY: And what's even more interesting is that...

BATTISTA: This is something I didn't understand. We're going to have to ask Deborah about this as soon as we can, because I didn't understand that either when they said it was increased aggression but it fell within the normal range. So what does that mean exactly? That a kid was just, you know, trying to get attention or...

SWEENEY: That means that it's normal.

BATTISTA: Yeah.

SWEENEY: It means that it's entirely normal. PARSHALL: Well, I don't think it's normal when you go from six percent to 17 percent, which is what the statistics tell us. That's not normal at all. What we have here...

SWEENEY: Yeah, but what's normal...

PARSHALL: And you don't have to be a graduate of the London School of Economics is that you have increased aggression. Now if you want more titles like Paducah, Jonesboro, Santee, Columbine in the news every day, then I guess we look the other way. But if we're going to see these kinds of statistics, we sit up, we take notice, and we reprioritize, Jennifer. And this is where it gets controversial.

SWEENEY: There's absolutely no indication...

PARSHALL: We reprioritize as mothers.

SWEENEY: That is absolutely no indication, first of all, that any of the aggressive behavior displayed by these children was abnormal, (a); (b) their behavior is being observed by mothers and teachers. There's no -- there's absolutely no indication that those people have a basis for calling something aggressive; the definition of aggressive behavior is completely nebulous.

The other thing is is that if you look at the study and you see the fact that children in less child care or no child care are showing much lower levels of aggression that are not considered normal for that child, you could reach a completely different conclusion.

PARSHALL: Well, I would disagree with you on that. I think there's a profound difference between aggression and assertion. As the mother of four and as a former public school teacher, I'm not particularly excited about having kids who are aggressive in any group environment. If you do that in the grade school, I have to tell you, no teacher is going to celebrate that fact. Once you get to your job and you're aggressive for your employer or your co-workers, nobody's going to be thrilled about that either. There are red flags here, Jennifer.

SWEENEY: But the fact that there's no indication that these children are aggressive after kindergarten. In fact, if you talk to anyone on the study, what they'll tell you is they're petrified that people are reaching conclusions about aggression, that it is somehow abnormal, and also that there's any indication in the study that it would continue after kindergarten. There's no evidence that these children are anymore aggressive than normal or that they continue their behavior of aggression after kindergarten.

PARSHALL: You know, Jennifer, that's sad because I think we do women a terrible disservice in this country. It isn't about handing out guilt when we reveal the results of this study. It's about a matter of telling women so they can make a fully informed decision about their children, about their future and about their lives, that there are some pretty strong indicators here. What we knew in the second phase of the study...

SWEENEY: No, these are misleading indicators.

PARSHALL: If I could finish, if I could finish, in the second phase of this study, here's what we discovered. It was a good news- bad news as well. Good news, we knew that Johnny did not have any problems cognitively, which meant he could learn his colors and his math facts and his state capitals. But here's what we discovered: that Johnny started to fond with his daycare worker.

Jennifer, I'm the mama. I want them to bond with me, not the child care worker. And when you have this disassociation on that attachment, you've got some red flags there. This is chapter three, increased aggression.

SWEENEY: There is no indication of disassociation. There's no indication of disassociation.

(CROSSTALK)

PARSHALL: Oh, Jennifer, talk with Jay Belsky, who's the principal researcher. He says there's red flags all over the place here.

SWEENEY: Do you recognize the fact that Jay Belsky is the only researcher on the project? He's actually reaching those conclusions and that other lead investigators on the project are basically disagreeing very strongly with Jay Belsky?

PARSHALL: He's the principal researcher, Jennifer.

BATTISTA: Well, you know what, you...

SWEENEY: He's not the only principal researcher.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a break. I've go to take a break. And we don't have Jay Belsky with us today, but we do have another investigator on that project, and we'll talk about some of those discrepancies right after the break here.

Before you went to school, were you ever in daycare? Take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at cnn.com/talkback. AOL key word: CNN. And while you're there, check out my notes and take a minute to e-mail your ideas to me, if you will.

Up next, what does mom have that no one else has? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Let me get a little bit of reaction here from the audience.

Gail, go ahead. You were telling us just a few moments ago...

GAIL: OK, yes, Bobbie. As I was saying earlier, I'm concerned about the love and attention that's going to be there for the daycare for our children, the overcrowdedness. Fortunately, my husband was there to work for me so I could stay at home and raise my children until they came of age to go to school as far as kindergarten. My kids now, they are adults and they are grown and in college. My youngest one is second year in college, and then my oldest...

BATTISTA: And they turned out fine is what you're saying?

GAIL: Yes, exactly, because -- then also, prayer in the homes, because in schools, you don't get that. So we need this. This makes a difference as far as our children.

BATTISTA: Let me take a phone call from Steve in Hawaii.

Steve, go ahead.

CALLER: Yeah, hi, Bobbie.

BATTISTA: Hi.

CALLER: I'm a father of three, and I think that this study is really irresponsible and sort of stupid, because even if you could quantify increased aggression in children in daycare, there are so many other variables when you are taking it examining a population like that: whether you're dealing with just single children from single parents, what is the socioeconomic class of the children that are showing the aggression, how many children in the family? It's like the problem they have with health studies. This is a very subtle conclusion to make without knowing what variables are actually at work. It may have nothing to do with them being in daycare.

BATTISTA: All right, Steve, thank very much. You bring up some good points.

Let's find out a little bit more about the study from Deborah Lowe Vandell. She is an educational psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, and she was one of the principal investigator on that study.

Deborah, thanks for joining us.

DEBORAH LOWE VANDELL, CHILD CARE STUDY INVESTIGATOR: It's a pleasure to be here today.

BATTISTA: OK, help us out here. What exactly did you guys find out about the correlation between daycare and more aggressive children?

VANDELL: Bobbie, we looked at three types of daycare. We looked at the quality of that child care. We looked at the type of child care, and we looked at the hours that children spent in child care. In your report, today, you've already talked about some of our good news. We found that higher quality care was associated with children having better pre-academic skills, better language skills -- important skills for children to have before they start to school. We found that children who went to centers had some better language skills and better memory skills, memory for things like words in sentences, important skills before children went to school. We also found higher behavior problems in kindergarten and at 4 1/2 for children who had more hours of care. And I hope we can talk some more about those hours findings, because I think there's been some serious misunderstanding about what we found.

BATTISTA: OK, let me ask you this first then: How many hours is too many hours in daycare?

VANDELL: I'm going to answer -- OK, I'm going to answer that a little different. What we found was when children were spending more hours in care, there were more behavioral problems. When we looked at the cut of 30 hours or more in the first 4 1/2 years, we found that some 17 percent of the children had what we called high levels of behavioral problems. But I should note, and as a other investigators have at the study, that that 17 percent is what you find in the U.S. overall. So children who were in care had no more behavioral problems at that high level than the garden-variety children in the U.S.

BATTISTA: So how were you defining aggressive behavior then, if it was normal behavior for most 4-year-olds?

VANDELL: We used a measure that's called the child behavior checklist. It's a widely used measure, and that measure looks at things like if the child get in fights with other children? Does the child get in trouble? Does the child have some trouble concentrating? So there are some markers of behavior problems, but they're the same kinds of behaviors that many children get into.

What we see, too, is that when those children who were not in child care went to kindergarten, the percentage of those children showing these kinds of problems starts to come up, too. It may well be that these kinds of problems are the kinds of problems children have in settings with other children.

BATTISTA: So therein lies the confusion for a lot of people, because this was not a cause-and-effect study, right? It was an observational study. So the bottom line is, you don't really know if daycare is the cause of the aggressive behavior, right?

VANDELL: Well, what we did was we controlled for a variety of family characteristics like: Was it a single-parent household? We looked at family income, we looked at mother psychological adjustment. We looked at how the parenting quality, the home quality. Controlling for all of those factor, we still see some effects of quality of child care, type of child care and hours.

Now one other part of the hours finding that we couldn't eliminate was it could be that parents who have children that are more challenging, those families may put their children in child care for more hours to give them a bit of a respite.

BATTISTA: You know, I want to take an Internet question here in just a moment, but I think what's also confusing is one of your colleagues on this study, Dr. Jay Belsky, was -- when he was being interviewed, I interpreted that he was waving more red flags than you are. So, I mean, was there disagreement even among you investigators on what exactly any conclusions could be drawn from this or how they should be interpreted?

VANDELL: I think that some of what we have is a glass-half empty, half-full interpretation. I think that it's very important for us to look at the quality findings and the type findings as well as the hours findings. And I think it's very important for us to look at that high-level of behavioral problems. I think we can also look at what we can do to reduce some of the impact of hours, and that looks like looking at the quality of the child care. Hours have less effect when quality is higher. We can also look at quality of parenting. Hours have less of an effect when parenting quality is higher, at least for some of the aspects we were looking at related to behavior problems.

BATTISTA: Let me take that Internet question there, if we could put that up on the screen. What about the kids raised by a nanny?

VANDELL: We included nanny care, and that was looked at in the hours. When we were looking at effects of things like center experience, in the home-based experience, we included nannies, dads, grandparents, child care home, all of those went into the overall child care hours. We didn't see any specific beneficial effects of nanny care.

BATTISTA: And I have an e-mail from Steve in Long Valley, New Jersey, who says, "It's not the amount of time mothers spend with their kids, it's the quality of that time spent together." Is that a myth?

VANDELL: I think in this study, we find that the quality of the mother's interactions with her child, how warm she is, how sensitive she is, how engaged with her child, that's very important. It's an important protection as children are in more hours of care to still have that quality of interactions. We also see throughout the NICHD study the importance of parenting. You can have good quality parenting when children are in child care, and you can have good quality parenting when children stay home with their mother.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience and Victor.

VICTOR: Well, I was saying sort of as a parent of three -- two in daycare -- but also as an educator working on my specialist in education, a lot of studies like this, these quantitative studies and even the professors at university refer them to kids as plants, just that you can't -- there are so many other factors going in, I think our phone call earlier referred to that, that, you know, you just can't really find too valid a finding with this.

BATTISTA: And I guess some people might wonder whether maybe it was -- is it premature, Deborah, to come out with a study this early that seems to confuse -- not mislead them but confuse them over this issue?

VANDELL: I think that's an important question, Bobbie. And the approach that we have taken in this study all along is to release findings as they come available. We released findings when children were two years of age, three years of age, now 4 1/2 and moving up into kindergarten. It really is to some extent a stay-tuned message, because we're going to be following these children through elementary grades. At the same time, we think we have some important information to people. We were able to talk about how do you go about improving quality? We know that if we have higher, better trained teachers, if we have smaller child-staff ratios, quality goes up, and that was linked child outcomes.

We know that if we have more -- better quality parenting, better quality in child care, some of the effects of hours are buffered. At the same time, I think our hours findings do tell us that we want to be looking to understand why might more time in child care have some effects. It may really be that low time in child care is what's having the effects, but we need to look at that. And I think the public and parents need to be sensitive to the importance of quality at home and at child care.

BATTISTA: I've got to take another break. When we come back, Jennifer and Janet are still there and can weigh in on this. Also, Gayle's on the phone with us. She's a daycare worker. And I got tons of e-mails. Back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: In Sweden, whichever parent stays at home with a child receives up to 80 percent of his or her salary for 10 months. Both parents get 80 percent for one month. French women get up to 16 weeks paid maternity leave for first and second children, and 26 weeks for succeeding children.

Couple of e-mails coming in here. BC in Munford, Alabama says, "It would be good for all of us to take stock of what is most important in this life: the bank account or a functional family? After all, a parent can go to work after the children are in school."

Dale in Oregon says, "The real problem is that in many families, the second parent has been forced into the work force. Our Congress needs to pay more attention to the needs of the American worker and less attention to special interests who want to keep wages down."

Gayle is on the phone in North Carolina.

Gayle, you're a daycare worker?

CALLER: I am. In my home have been a sitter for about 15 years. And I do not agree that child care will create aggressive children. Some children are going to be aggressive anyway. And it depends on the child care, and how you -- you treat your children, if you give them love and attention. I don't think that they're going to be aggressive unless they are going to be aggressive anyway.

And you know, child care is a wonderful thing. And if this is true, there are so many children in child care today, that if this was true, look how many millions of children we would have that are aggressive.

BATTISTA: All right, Gayle, thanks very much. Janet, she has a point there.

PARSHALL: Yes. Has she ever driven on I-95? I think you've got a lot of aggression this country. My goodness, let me go back to something that was said before, Bobbie. And again, let me tell you experientially as a mother who had four children in six years and stayed home with all four of her children, because as an educator, I knew that I was the preeminent teacher in my child's life. I was the best department of health, education and welfare and I wanted to be there. And we made tough choices as a family, but we looked at what was a priority in our life. And our babies were our priority.

One of the biggest myths perpetuated on this culture is the idea of quality versus quantity time. Not once did my children ever take a look at their PalmPilot and say, "Wednesday, 2:00. Let's you and I schedule some quality time together. It happens because we're there. Or it happens -- we're there when that first step, that first word, that first hurt.

And something else. Science tells us now that with all this conversation about IQ, we're beginning now to examine something known as EQ. The foundation stone of personality is the mother/child relationship. Nobody else can do that, Bobbie, but us. That's the way we were made, that's the way we were designed. And when we're not there, that bonding goes some place else, that sense of detachment is there. And they look to see if they're valued and honored and have a place in somebody's heart just like us. And that's why we're going to see more broken people in the years ahead not less.

BATTISTA: Go ahead, Jennifer.

SWEENEY: Well, I just think that that's patently untrue and really kind of sad in that it doesn't acknowledge the real world. And it also doesn't acknowledge the value...

PARSHALL: What I was I living? A pretend world?

SWEENEY: No, it doesn't. Yeah, I guess it is the pretend world, and it's sort of sad, because I suppose that -- you know, it's extremely important and these studies have shown that children should be with the people who want to be with the children. And if the mother in this case, Janet, is obviously the sort of mother that absolutely has to be at home with her children because if she's not, her effect on the children is going to be negative. She's going to be depressed. She's going to be upset...

PARSHALL: Oh, shame on, you, Jennifer.

SWEENEY: ... for not being at home with her children.

PARSHALL: Shame on you. No, I have to tell you that we have a long history as women of knowing that we are the most important person in our children's life. And here's the problem. When I made my decision, Jennifer, when I made my decision, Jennifer, I have to tell you...

SWEENEY: Well, unfortunately, that's an egotistical question.

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: Let me get Deborah back here in, quickly, because one of the things we haven't talked about yet, which is along those lines, is that the study was a little bit some might say insulting to fathers, because didn't the study also show that it didn't matter that these children, you know, might be spending their time with a stay-at- home dad instead of a mom?

SWEENEY: No to mention...

VANDELL: Well, we were looking at dads, but there were two other points that I think that your other visitors have been talking about that I think really have to be looked at. On is that we have many single-parent households in this country that if the mom is not employed, the family is going to be in poverty. We have many two- parent households in this country that it takes both families -- both of the parents working to keep the families out of poverty and with a good wage.

This study, if you're just thinking about hours, we did not look at in this particular report what happens when you're putting -- subjecting children to living in poverty. And I think that's got to be part of the equation.

The other thing that we have to look at is to know that, in fact, mothers are very important for children, but other social experiences also are important, opportunities to interact with other children, opportunities to interact with other adults, be that fathers, be that grandparents, and also child care providers. Children learn from these social experiences.

Of course, the mother is important, but few people in this country believe that only the mother is important. We've had a long history of children going to nursery school. Very, very few children actually have experiences only with the mother.

When I was a kindergarten teacher 25 years ago, the children that I actually worried about the most were children who had never been around other children or other caregivers. They came to school at a real disadvantage. And I think that pretending that only the mother is important for children is a mistake.

SWEENEY: Well, in study indicates that. I mean, what it reflects is that children who have not been around other children in a child care situation, apparently, don't have skills for dealing with other children. They show abnormally low percentage of aggression in this study.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the...

VANDELL: Actually, let me --

BATTISTA: Yeah, Jen. VANDELL: Let me actually correct that a bit. What we found is that only 5 percent of those children who had low hours were in the high range of behavioral problems. By the time that the children get to kindergarten, we find that the number goes up to 9 percent. I suspect that what will be happening is, children who had low opportunities to interact with other children or around other children more will probably going to get the low child care group up to that same 17 percent figure, which is what unfortunately happened -- which is the norm.

In the same way that half of the children in this country score below average on an achievement of the test. That's the nature of the test. In this particular 17 percent of the children will probably be having some behavioral problems. That is what the normed sample on the test is built to show.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience, and Lori, go ahead.

LORI: Yes. As much as I would like to disagree with the study because parents have to work, I have to agree with it. I was a juvenile justice case worker for 11 years and I worked with the extremely, violent and behavioral-problem children. I saw the lack of love of a mother firsthand. I used to consider myself a court-ordered mom on occasion. Most all of the children I dealt with had a mom absent for one reason or another.

BATTISTA: But at the same time, in all fairness, we don't want to equate daycare with the lack of love from a mother.

LORI: That is true.

SWEENEY: That's unfair.

VANDELL: That's the disconnect. That's the issue, is the disconnect.

LORI: That is ridiculous.

BATTISTA: You guys, I am pushing the break here. I have to take a break and we need to say good-bye to Deborah Lowe Vandell.

VANDELL: It was a pleasure.

BATTISTA: And Jennifer Foote Sweeney.

SWEENEY: Thank you.

BATTISTA: Up next, we'll talk to child care expert JOHN ROSEMOND and child psychologist ALVIN POUSSAINT; we'll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: OK, a couple more e-mails. Jennifer in Texas says: "Statistically, my son should be in prison. I was not married enough to have the four children they had. I had an on again-off again relationship with their father. My sons are all grown up and lead productive and responsible lives. Statistics can be misleading, and make you doubt your parenting abilities."

And in Minneapolis: "My child just moved to a new center because of problems she had with aggressive kids. We also reduce the amount of time my girl is in daycare, because we saw some of this aggressive behavior in kids who were there all day."

Joining us now is Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a child and family psychiatrist. He is associate dean at Harvard Medical School.

And on the phone with us is John Rosemond, syndicated columnist and the author of ten parenting books including his latest, "John Rosemond's New Parent Power." Welcome to the both of you.

Dr. Poussaint, there are a lot of mothers out there just drowning in guilt over this study; what do you make of it?

DR. ALVIN POUSSAINT, CHILD FAMILY PSYCHIATRIST: I think the study is quite alarmist. I think the way they stated the statistics is a way of sensationalizing the results. If you actually look at what happened, they said 17 percent of the children who in daycare over 30 hours were more aggressive and more demanding, more complaining, what exactly does that mean?

That means that 83 percent of the children who were in some type of daycare did not have these aggressive problems. I think they should be looking at, what is the difference between the 17 percent who seem to be more aggressive, and the 83 percent who are not aggressive and who seem quite normal? So that's a key question to me.

And I think that's where it probably has something to do with the quality of daycare and also the parents and their sensibilities and the socioeconomic situation and poverty. Those are the key factors to look at. I think we will have daycare. There is still a problem with good daycare.

And one thing that no-one pointed out, is one of the problems with daycare is, there's a large turnover of staff, so children make an attachment and they become unattached to someone they're closed to, because people move on, because salaries are so low. I think that's a critical ingredient in whether the children feel a sense of getting emotional support when they are in daycare, and only a small percentage of daycare, maybe 5 to 10 percent, is rated high quality by a lot of pediatricians.

BATTISTA: That's one of the biggest complaints by parents, is that turnover rate.

John Rosemond, let me get you in on this. Over the years -- there are so many factors, it seems to me that could contribute to what makes a child aggressive.

JOHN ROSEMOND, FAMILY PSYCHIATRIST: One of the things that people are not aware of, perhaps, is there was a very good study done about four or five years ago, Bobbie, and I'm afraid I'm in a hotel room and don't have chapter and verse on this, but one of the highest predictors of aggression in children turned out to be maternal permissiveness.

And I agree with Dr. Poussaint that this study is just simply not refined enough to draw any hard and fast conclusions. The fact is, that the researchers here did not differentiate between types of daycare, quality of daycare. They just lumped all daycare together.

And the fact of the matter is, there is a lot of very bad daycare out there. The fact of the matter is there is a lot of daycare that presents very frustrating environments for children, that could foster aggression.

BATTISTA: We have an e-mail a few minutes ago from Florida who said, what an interesting experiment. An entire generation is being raised by strangers during the week and then coddled and spoiled on the weekends by parents suffering guilt.

ROSEMOND: Yes, and what you often get, and I see this a lot, is a mother who's very, very guilty for putting her child in daycare situation, and when she is with her child, she is very relaxed and permissive and again, research showed four or five years ago said that that is a very high predictor of child aggression.

BATTISTA: Janet, did you want to weigh back in after this.

PARSHALL: Yes, I'd be happy to, please. You know, it's very interesting as we look at all of the socio-science data here, look, some people consider this study, which is federally funded, by the way, to be the gold standard of studies, and as we said earlier, this is -- the jury still out. There's a lot more still to come.

But we can glean at least some of the things we've learned so far, not the least of which is that if we look at the first phase of the study, for example, the younger the child was that the mom put into daycare, the less responsive she became to responding to her baby's needs, and that's because we learn to listen with the ears on our heart as our babies talk, we begin to recognize the different cries, the ways in which they manifest their needs.

The second phase said, you've got a bonding problem here. You're bonding with the worker, not so much with the mom. Third phase here says, uh-huh, we see some kind of an increase in levels of aggression. We've got to go back, Bobbie, to first principles. First principles are the mother is the primary nurturer. That's the way it's been since the beginning of time. The mother is the one who affirms, affirms, affirms and builds that cornerstone.

The mother is the one that builds in pathos, a sense of conscience, a sense of right and wrong, a sense of who they are as human being. So, there's a lot of indicators here that say look, we've single moms. We've got poor daycare. We've got transient workers. This is a huge issue, but let's go back to the primary issue which is, mama, how important is that baby to you? You've got to make some tough choices. POUSSAINT: Mothers are important, but I think you're doing a disservice to the role of fathers and a disservice to the role of grandmothers. Many grandparents have very successfully raised their children. The way this study is presented makes all of those things seem as if they're negative and the mother is of primary absolutely importance.

Even though she is important, all studies indicate that the father's role, when they are involved with their children, is critical on all levels, whether they're divorced children, whether they're out of wedlock children or whatever. I think to ignore fathers and put all the emphasis on mothers seems to be anachronistic in some way, and going back to an earlier time and in fact, putting pressures on mothers and them making them feel more guilty and making them feel they're so much the essential character that other people can't be adequate substitutes for them, and I don't think that that's true.

PARSHALL: Dr. Poussaint, you would agree that we are still, no matter what, the most important. Now, that doesn't negate the influence of others in our lives, but mothers remain the most important.

(CROSSTALK)

POUSSAINT: I agree that you're probably most important, but I know some house husbands who have done terrific jobs. It's the way society is structured, and, you know, woman have the babies, and they come out of them and it's mother attachment that I think is unique. There's no question about that. But I think that many other individuals -- look, I mean you can adopt children, too, right? And they come out well even though they were not nurtured inside their biologic mother.

So, I think there are a lot of elements. One final point I want to make...

BATTISTA: Let me have you save that point, Dr. Poussaint, I'm sorry. I've got to take this quick break here and so we'll come back to that. We'll also come back to Steve in the audience, who's a grandfather taking care of a child. We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Let me go to Steve quickly in the audience. Steve, you are a grandfather who takes care of your grandson or granddaughter.

STEVE: My wife and I both take care -- I should say my wife is more the caretaker than I am, but we both look after her. She is three years old, and at this point in time I don't see much difference in her behavior. She goes to school two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the mornings, and we pick her up in the afternoons and then we work with her -- our daughter, with her problems and so forth. And we see no problem.

BATTISTA: So you really have a good expended family kind of thing going there...

STEVE: Yes, we do.

BATTISTA: That's also a dying thing in this country. Jean is on the phone from Georgia. Jean, go ahead.

JEAN: Yes, I definitely feel that mothers should be there. We were deprived of a lot of things other than we had love in our home, we had food and I think nowadays that the parents feel like if they don't have a big home, a two- or three-car garage and all of this and keeping up with the Jones, they are absolutely -- you know, but being home with those children when they come home from school, giving them their snacks and mama be there to take care of them and meet their needs is more important than material things and thank you.

BATTISTA: Thank you. John Rosemond, do you think that's what at core of most people who opt for child care?

ROSEMOND: Well, I think materialism drives America, and I do think that there a lot of children in daycare centers whose parents could get by quite comfortably in fact. They'd have to draw the belt in a little tighter, but could get by quite comfortable on one income. So, yes, I think that daycare centers are flourishing in part because of the need to keep up with the Jones, yes.

BATTISTA: Dr. Poussaint.

POUSSAINT: I think it's also because of social policies. I work at hospitals up here in Boston, and the women doctors, they get three months' maternity leave and they have return to work full time. That means if they are a surgeon, they have put child in daycare beginning at three months.

Now, this is very different from many European countries and Scandinavia, where they have much more leave time to take care of their young infant children and to become attached to them and also not to suffer economically because of taking a great deal of time off to be mothers and in some cases to be fathers.

So I think some of these issues have to do with social policies of the United States, how much we value children, how much we value families, and dealing with the reality of the world and the workplace. Women are going to continue to work. There is more and more single parent -- parents than ever, about a quarter of the population.

They have to work. We have to find out ways of supporting the family. One of the ways of supporting the family is with quality daycare.

BATTISTA: Would you agree, Janet?

PARSHALL: Well, I have to tell you, the good news story is that in fact we're hearing of more and more women who after having been out in the workplace have decided to reconsider their decision.

I love the story of Leah Lantoni (ph). She's a judge that comes out of Wisconsin. She stood in juvenile court and watched all of these troubled kids walk in front of her bench day after day.

One day, she woke up and she realized she was the mama of three boys, and she thought, this is crazy, I need to go home and I need to raise these boys. And she says it's the best decision she ever made. She says this way her kids won't show up in court some day because she's invested where she wanted to invest.

I think we need some changes here in social policy. We need flex time. We need cottage industry. We need to be able to say that there should be a tax break for parents so we're not breaking the back economically of the parent.

So there's a lot (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that can be done here.

BATTISTA: But we also have to say there's no guarantee...

POUSSAINT: Staying home -- staying home with the kid is a very middle- to upper-middle-class experience. And there are so many families who economically can just not afford...

(CROSSTALK)

PARSHALL: Well, Dr. Poussaint, you should listen to my radio show and hear all of the moms who would not be in either of those categories who have made the decision to stay home, because they say there's only a short period of time for childhood. They keep growing whether we're there or not. They don't want to miss it. They're going to invest in it.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Check our online viewer vote. The question was: "Were you in daycare?" 83 percent say no, 17 percent say yes. We, of course, don't have any idea about the statistics of those responding to that poll.

John Rosemond, let me give you the last word here on what -- the bottom line here. What are parents to make of studies like these?

ROSEMOND: Not a whole lot. Studies that report general trends or general outcomes -- they don't predict. At an individual level, someone said earlier that -- told a very dramatic story about a judge who decided to stay home with their kids. Well, I believe Eric Klebold's mother was at home. So, you know, just being in the home does not guarantee anything nor does putting a child in daycare guarantee anything.

These studies are faulted from the very beginning, and I'd be interested in someone replicate this whole thing before we begin leaping to conclusions about any of this.

BATTISTA: We need more information then. All right, John Rosemond, Janet Parshall and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, thank you all very much. PARSHALL: Thanks, Bobbie.

BATTISTA: Appreciate your time. We will be back again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern Time for more TALKBACK LIVE. Please join us then.

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