A WAY TO REACH YOUR DESTINY

Rates of employment among mothers of children under age three have risen consistently during the last half-century and they show no signs of slackening. The impact of a mother’s wages on the family’s budget is a persuasive factor in many households. In two-parent families, mothers contribute about one-third of the family’s income. Moreover, families with new babies tend to be young and vulnerable economically. In families that struggle with poverty, as has long been the case, maternal employment is taken for granted. In some of the countries, the public has resisted the norm of maternal employment, especially during the first years of life. Public reactions to parent’s decision to work and use childcare sometimes suggest that materialism and concern with status have overshadowed more fundamental family values. When the topic is single, mothers and welfare policy, however, public attitudes about good parenting and employment reverse sharply.  To the public, the value of family self-sufficiency trumps the value of having a parent as caregiver for the very young, if the family’s economic independence is at stake.

Even with increased access to family leave, working mothers soon will find themselves searching for childcare, hoping to find caregivers who are warm, reliable, and responsive. Yet, while the nation’s youngest children are entering childcare in growing numbers, earlier and earlier in their lives, few would claim that the decentralized childcare market is prepared to offer them the safe, stimulating, nurturing care they deserve. On the contrary, of all the childcare services, care for infants and toddlers is the most scarce, expensive, and disappointing from a quality perspective. Combined with improved leave policies that would give parents more opportunities to care for their babies themselves, improved childcare policies are needed to ensure that the care-giving that takes place outside the family is affordable, trustworthy, and good for babies. A closer look at the largest government investment in children, the Childcare and Development Fund (CCDF) that funds childcare subsidies to help low- income families pay for care, suggests that more could be done to protect these most innocent Americans. As is the case with the FMLA, however, the CCDF has limitations. If those limitations are addressed, the next generation of childcare investments can further strengthen the childcare options available to parents.

A variety of government policies affect care-giving by all families. For instance, tax, employment, welfare policies oblige parents to work or enable them to remain home and both regulatory and funding policies shape the market of childcare services where parents shop for non-familial care. The tradition of family policy is to assume that “citizens will provide for their own needs through employment, the government steps in only in the event of family breakdown or loss of employment.” Some people argue that government efforts are focused on supporting the economic role of families, and little attention goes to their care giving role. In European countries, governments use the tools of public policy to advance positive goals for families and children, especially during the first three years of life. Policies seek to encourage childbearing while ensuring that women and men have equal opportunities in education and employment. The public in such countries expects governments and business leaders to provide working conditions, leave and benefit policies, and publicly funded childcare programs that will help parents balance work and care-giving. In contrast, many surveys shows, parents call for government help in resolving the work-family dilemmas they face. That’s really surprising but in some countries, parents do not want government authorities to dictate family decisions. Some may fear government scrutiny of their care giving; others may not want to be appear to be unable to manage their responsibilities.

The CCDF is a funding programme, not a law imposing mandates or requirements like the FMLA, and as currently structured it does little to ensure or upgrade the quality of services available to families. But it could contribute to quality. According to the National Academy of Science, young children benefit from care that offers them ample verbal and cognitive stimulations, sensitive and responsive care-giving and generous amounts of attention and support. These positive experiences are most prevalent when the children are in small groups, when the child-adult ratios are low, and when caregivers are educated, well-compensated, and stable in their roles. All these features of good care for infants and toddlers contribute to its cost, however. A more flexible approach already built into the CCDF is the requirement that states use 4 per cent of their federal childcare funding for quality improvement. These funds can support activities to educate consumers about childcare, to expand supply, or to strengthen programs by providing trainings, offering stipends to encourage staff retention, or facility improvement grants. Establishing set-aside for quality is an important step, but it will take significantly more than 4 per cent of subsidy funding to have a detectable impact on the quality of care provided in the sprawling American market of diverse childcare services. The number of childcare centers nationwide expanded by 21 per cent from 1997 to till date, whereas the number of registered family childcare homes more than doubled.

Every new parent holding a newborn child, experiences the fundamental and heartfelt desire to nurture this new life. In America in 1990s, providing for this child often means finding a supportive childcare environment. Out-of-home childcare is an increasingly important facet of everyday life. Not only are more children entering childcare facilities, but these children are entering at an earlier age. A substantial proportion of children begin out-of-home care as early as 10 weeks of age. Further changes in social assistance policy and the topography of the American workforce will increase for access to affordable and safe childcare. Along with the increased requirements of quality facilities comes an increasingly complex set of demands placed on childcare providers. These include the need to provide a developmentally stimulating and creative environment for all children, including those with acute or chronic medical needs. At the same time childcare professionals are now often asked to assist parents in managing for increasingly complex world of childrearing. However, as with most sociologically driven issues such as health care restructuring, Americans will require solutions that fit their national temperament and economic perspective. The new extended family framework of today’s childcare environment not only presents increased challenges but also new opportunities for caring and nurturing. There are an ever-increasing number of innovative programs that have begun to do this. These include programs such as Smart Start in North Carolina, Back to Sleep program led by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

It seems to be that every parents dream to have a child going to college, knowing that they will graduate as a doctor, nurse, lawyer, and businessman. Not every child is on the path to attain secondary education though. According to the National Centre for Education Statistics, 86.5 per cent of American teenagers are completing high school. The best way to encourage children to continue education is to become interested in what they are doing, interact with them by providing them with the resources they need to flourish into a well educated adult. Some of the simple ways of helping your teenagers on the path to success are to identify the goals your child has and help them to achieve those goals, support any school involvement they have, recognize any special needs that they have. Recognition of their goals early on can help make up for lost time in the future. If a regular school seems too much for them, think about placing them in a different school. Realize that not every child is cut out for college. Even if yours is, realize that realistic goals for your child should be kept in mind. The most important thing is to interact with your child, keeping the lines of communication open. Think about the future, knowing your children are the future and helping them decide on the best route to take will help to make life easier.

Many teenagers now work in today’s modern society than ever before. In fact, most teens worked more than twenty hours per week while still attending school. Because more teenagers work more hours per week, they are spending significantly less time on their schoolwork. One would assume that maintaining a job as an adolescent would promote positive self-identity and growth, responsibility, the development of future career goals, and higher academic expectations for him. Some research suggests that there are negative consequences towards high school students who are employed. There is a significant difference of academic success between adolescents who were employed and those who chose not to work while in school. Drawing upon the research, the teenagers who were employed had poorer pre-employment attitudes and beliefs as opposed to their counterparts, the teens that will not work. The survey that compared the two groups of students resulted, that the students who eventually found employment had lower grades and lower future educational expectations, spent less time on homework, and were more likely to be disengaged from school activities than the non-working students. Researchers Steinberg, Greenberger have found that teenagers who hold jobs are more likely to be absent from school and enjoy school less, than those students who are not employed. Teenagers who work are likely to be employed in the retail and food service fields. While these areas provide good job for teenagers, these jobs do not help increase their cognitive abilities. Concerned with the negative aspects associated with school and employment, they feel that isolating teenagers in age-segregated jobs, where the nature of jobs itself require no training, is not conductive to positive educative experiences.

It is extremely common this day and age to find families in which both the mother and the father are employed. Females are tending to get married at the later age and therefore, have children when they are older because they want to pursue their career. This also coincides with the idea that after a woman does have a child; she eventually goes back to her job. It has become an all-to-familiar scene with the recent phenomena of teen violence. It is a common belief that if parents were to pay more attention on their kids, this would never happen. However, parents have become seemingly obsessed, focusing all their attentions to their careers, and leaving little attention for their children often out of economic necessity. Parents seem to have feeling that once their child is old enough to stay home alone by themselves, they are then grown and the parents work is done. This, however, is not the case because adolescence is a time of critical growth. Parents play a major role in the development of their children and when their focus is not all present; their teens tend to do things to make them pay attention. Teens become disobedient and defiant based on the lack of attention and care that they naturally crave at this stage in their lives. Adolescents do not want to let on that they need their parents, but they in fact do. Now work-and-family specialists see growing interest in career adjustment that allows parents to keep closer tabs on teens.