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March 29, 2006

Lying for Jesus

Denise Kanter of the Morningstar Educational Network has an axe to grind. She believes that good parents homeschool their children and she attempts to cobble together some convincing data to help hone her axe.

Major research firms and universities in America, Canada, and England have arrived at the same conclusion as the new study reported in the Australian Sydney Morning Herald, that "daycare damages babies' brain chemistry and affects their social and emotional development." It was reported, "significant among the reams of research are the so-called cortisol studies, which measured the presence of stress hormones in young babies -- consistently finding levels to be higher in children in long hours of day care." Children in daycares and preschools are not developing properly...

The Australian Sydney Morning Herald piece she references is an article by "parenting guru and psychologist" Steven Biddulph titled Day care is bad for babies.

What Ms. Kanter doesn't say is that Biddulph's own research only covers the first two years of life. So right off the bat Ms. Kanter is pummeling a Straw Man of her own making. And as Catharine Lumby, associate professor of media studies (University of Sydney) and co-author of the forthcoming book Why TV Is Good for Kids, points out, Biddulph's research is of little value if not put into context first.

But even if we ignore Ms. Kanter's blatent misrepresentation of the facts and just accept her argument on it's face... we're still left with the most glaring problem of all: $$$

Look, I'm all for Ms. Kanter being able to raise her kids the way she sees fit, up to, including and beyond homeschooling them if that's what floats her boat. But... the economic realities, as Ms. Lumby pointedly mentions, are that many parents simply can't survive on one income stream. If Ms. Kanter were to also be calling for living wages for employees and more liberal maternity/paternity leave policies in the corporate world, it would be a great deal easier to take her seriously. But she's already shown that she's not above spinning the truth. I see no reason why she would step out of character and actually face any other aspect of the issue honestly.

Posted by Kevin at March 29, 2006 02:52 PM