Pros And Cons Of Non Parental Care

Arguments for Non-Parental Care for Children

Shakeda McRoberts

Online Juvenile Delinquency

Due: 9/1/2013

Arguments for non-parental care for children

Abstract: I reviewed three existing arguments in favour of having some childcare done by none. My arguments are the assumption that, no matter who provides it, childcare will inevitably go wrong at times. It is imperative of mitigating bad care, of teaching children how to enter caring relationships with people who are initially strangers to them, of addressing children’s structural vulnerability to their care-givers, of helping children and parents contain the ambivalent feelings of the child-parent relationship, and of distributing the responsibility of care and the ensuing blame
It is possible that, in some cases, making non-parental care mandatory may do more damage than good, since care provided in inadequate conditions can harm children. When the organization of universal, adequate non-parental care is unfeasible due to lack of resources, finding the necessary resources, including children with special needs, for whom adequate non-parental care might involve much higher expense, should become a political priority. When parental opposition to mandatory non-parental care risk introducing harmful disruptions into children’s lives, we should not simply accept this opposition but try to persuade parents. For this reason, it is important that arguments which show that non-parental care is a matter of fairness and duty be accompanied by arguments which show that it advances children’s and parents’ wellbeing. In my paper some of these arguments are based on children’s and parents’ needs. A fundamental normative assumption I make is that fair societies ensure that everybody’s essential needs are met. Moreover, when the satisfaction of needs impacts on people’s (often comparative) opportunities to lead good lives, need and fairness point in the same direction, providing all the more reason to ensure that needs are properly addressed. Children are dependent on adults’ care if their needs for security, nourishment, hygiene, affection, socialization and basic education are to be met.
This does not necessarily mean that the costs of childrearing must be shared between parents and childless people since the necessary public funds may come from taxes paid only by parents. On this account, universal non-parental care would rectify, or prevent the accumulation of, pre-existing unfair inequalities. It is very urgent to be aware of the risk that particular arrangements of non-parental care might perpetuate, or exacerbate, various social divisions, including class and economic ones, in a similar way to that in which public schools have been criticized for doing so. This is more likely if parents are allowed to choose the institution their child will attend, or if children attend local care institutions in class-segregated neighborhoods. If such obstacles are not insuperable, the conclusion of this argument is that fairness towards children demands the provision of universal on-parental care. Making the non-exit commitment lighter a second somewhat symmetrical argument based on distributive justice takes parents’ wellbeing and opportunities as grounds for the provision of some care outside the home. Parents commitment for the care of their children involves serious costs in terms of time, economic opportunities and personal