The Delaware Daycare Fight Club: Throwing Kids to the Wolves

     In recent days, a father, with his 20-month-old son in the car, led the police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Detroit after he refused to stop for a traffic offense. He ran a stop sign, lost control of the vehicle, crashed, then continued his flight from custody on foot carrying the uninjured child in his arms. Just before the police caught up to him, the father handed his son off to a woman on the street he didn't know. (Whether or not the police should have been chasing a man with a child in the car is another question.)

     Anyone who follows the news will come across, almost every day, a story featuring an irresponsible, clearly unfit parent. However, the fact there are probably thousands upon thousands of kids in this country being raised by drug addicts, child abusers, nut cases, and immature idiots, doesn't mitigate the problem that so many children are being raised in daycare centers by people who shouldn't be anywhere near a child.  

     Millions of children in the United States are being partially raised (or warehoused) in 400,000 or so licensed and regulated child care facilities. Forty-one percent of preschool children whose mothers are employed, find themselves in daycare 35 or more hours a week. In America, daycare has become a big business.

     Suzanne Venker, in an online National Review article entitled, "Will America Ever be Ready for the Truth About Daycare," points out that politicians and media journalists avoid talking about the harm daycare is doing to the nation's children. Politicians don't want to offend female voters, and women in the media rely on daycare services themselves, and are therefore not prone to publicly discuss the issue. Venker and others, consider daycare one of the greatest tragedies of modern America. They see the phenomena as a growing epidemic of parental abandonment.

     In her National Review piece, Venker discusses a recent e-book by May Saubiek called Doing Time: What it Really Means to Grow Up in Daycare. According to the author, daycare children receive very little individualized attention, and when they do, because of the high daycare employee turnover rates, it's often from a stranger. Because daycare is a business that relies on customers who believe their children are happy, and being cared for by people who care, parents aren't told how miserable their children really are. On the contrary, parents receive rose-colored reports of how well their kids are adapting and progressing. Parents are often told that the daycare experience helps "socialize" their children. According to Saubiek, daycare life fosters aggressive behavior by forcing kids into survival mode. If a child wants a toy, he or she learns to fight for it.

     Some child facilities are obviously better than others, and conditions might not be so bleak as Saubiek describes in her book. But it seems to me that, to some degree, a good number of working mothers' children are paying the price for the realities of modern society. Daycare workers are not highly paid, thoroughly investigated, or well trained. And they are being drawn from a society awash in alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction, pedophilia, and ignorance. Who are these rent-a-parents, and what are they doing to America's preschool population?

 The Delaware Daycare Fight Club

     On August 18, 2012, police officers in Dover, Delaware watched a video that showed two 3-year-old boys engaged in a fight organized and supervised by three workers at The Hands of Our Future Daycare Center. One of the Dover daycare workers recorded the combat on her cellphone. When one of the toddlers cried, "He's pinching me!" one of these fight organizers said, "No pinching, only punching."

     In speaking to a reporter, Dover police captain Tim Stump said, "It's difficult to watch. One of the kids involved ran over to one of the adults for protection, but she turned him around back into the fight. They were just wailing on each other, I mean slapping, pinching, throwing each other onto tables." (The fight viewed by the police had occurred back in March 2012.)

     On August 21, the police arrested 19-year-old Tianna Harris, Lisa Parker, 47, and 21-year-old Estefania Myers. Charged with assault, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangering, and conspiracy, these daycare workers were placed into the county jail on $10,000 bond each. All three suspects posted bail and were released from custody shortly after their arrests. They are currently awaiting their preliminary hearings.

     One would think that this case, and the subject of daycare services in America, would be a topic of discussion in the national media. The fact it isn't proves Suzanne Venker's point. If politicians raise questions about the quality of daycare in the country, they will be accused by their opponents of waging a war on working women. And since more than half of the personalities featured on television news shows are women, the subject is off-limits. At least for now.

     Someone should be asking how one daycare center had three abusers working at the facility at the same time. Who are these people? Was this facility licensed? Who in Delaware is in charge of daycare oversight? And finally, is there anyway to protect daycare children from institutional abuse?