The Invention of Day Care
How “researchers” and
reporters, shrinks and bureaucrats have used their own personal choices and
lots of wishful thinking to create the sad myth of “good” day care. By
Tom Zoellner, Reprinted from Men's Health Magazine, September 1999
manslife.com |
THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM
So what did (Elizabeth) Harvey do? The data Harvey analyzed came from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)...(originating)...in the late 1960s...to study the workforce
(a completely different topic than daycare).
...Much
of the information came from
surveys*:
(other) Researchers simply
interviewed people
every few years about how well their lives were going and how their kids
were doing, among other things.
The result is statistics heaven,
a hot kitchen of cooking numbers, where
anybody can go to prove anything he wants to prove.
...The sample Harvey obtained from the NLSY certainly wasn’t a snapshot of
middle-class America (it was
biased
as follows):
-
The sample’s average family
income was … half the national norm.
-
Half of the sample belonged to a (underprivileged) minority group.
-
A significant number of the mothers were
single mothers.
-
The emotional assessment
of the children wasn’t based entirely on scientific testing. A good
portion of it was based on what the children’s mothers told the government
interviewers.
-
The mothers’ median
IQ was (below average) in the low to mid-80s; 100 is considered average.
-
The mothers were
younger
than the national average when they had their children.
*Surveys are notoriously
inaccurate...Do you remember what you had for breakfast last
Thursday? -- editor
Category =
Politics |
