Next century outrage? Daycare
‘What commonplace attitudes or practices today would be considered outrageous in 100 years?’
There is a small building on the side of the railway tracks on my commute. A sad bungalow masked by signs in bright primary colours. It is a daycare facility. A place where adults take their infants and toddlers to be put in the care of strangers while they work.
I think in one hundred years people will look back at this common practice of ours with bemused shock and for a number of reasons.
Humanity may have evolved to produce half-organic/half-robot babies best reared by an iPad. Bernie Sanders/Corbynomics may have proven effective: the government pays everyone the same salary as a top CEO (also an iPad) – now all parents are equally unfulfilled watching daytime TV with the kids.
Or maybe advances in mitochondrial DNA manipulation allow for five-parent-families, sparing enough adults for child rearing.
But it is the evidence available to us today that will most likely make it tomorrow’s scandal.
Neuro-science supports attachment theory: infants need secure attachment with at least one known and consistent primary care giver, ideally a biological parent, for the first three years of their lives.
For myriad reasons, that is neither a popular nor politically viable idea today.
