The concept of both the parents working was not existing in India till the 70s, however due to rising costs of life and the rising aspirations in modern society, both the parents need to step out of the home to earn livelihoods. This leaves their small children behind but with whom ? The answer is modern daycare.

A daycare facility exists to take care of the small children, generally aged 2-10, and during the working hrs each day i.e. 8 to 8. For this is the time when both the parents are out working in their respective fields and thereby enhancing their careers and for betterment of the family life as a whole. The modern daycare centers are designed to give a feeling of home and comfort to the child and take care of his/her basic needs like a balanced diet and all rounded growth by engaging his mental faculties.

This allows the parents to keep working during the daytime which otherwise would not be possible in today’s nuclear families that are mostly prevalent in the metro cities. If this were not available one parent, usually the mother, would sacrifice her career for taking care of the child. But with the advent of modern women as doctors, engineers, IAS officers and nowadays even as defence officers there is no upper ceiling to which the career of a working woman may cross.

The engagement of the child in the daycare will lead to increase in work productivity of both the parents as now they are mentally assured of the child being in the right hands and being taken care of properly. So many companies that have a large female workforce offer crèche services at the office itself. This helps retain the female employees, ensures that they turn up in time for office and builds an employee oriented caring work culture at work place. As the mother can during the day visit the child, in this kind of arrangement, the mother is satisfied of the continuous well being of the child at all times.

Often work involves travel. But with the child this is not possible as one of the parents would not be there in the evening and if the mother has to travel for work, then the father can leave the child at the daycare during the daytime and pick the child up at evening time. This arrangement may be discomforting for a couple of days but it will temporarily solve the problem. Won’t it.

Specialisation in today’s field of work has become as essential as a Master’s degree in earlier times. Often the specialisation takes place after 5-7 yrs. of work experience and when by then there may be a child in the family. Again due to the child, classes cannot be attended by the parent, but if the higher institution is in the same city of residence then daycare will come as a solution just as in the case of working parents situation.

Socialising is being realised as a major need in today’s kids. This is due to the life in flats and the removal of playgrounds in societies and schools, which have become concrete jungles where kids are taught not to talk to strangers and trust no one. The daycare solves this problem as it is a safe place for kids to mingle and hence increase their social skills and develop the art of co-existing and sharing amongst groups. So group behaviour develops and personality of the child begins to take shape.

Often parents complain that thir kids do not take food at the time slots i.e. no lunch during lunch time but later during the day. No amount of scolding or incentivisation helps because of the bond of love between the two. At daycare there is no such bond but rather a time table and schedule for each thing. And this thing will be offered to the child at a particular time, it won’t matter if the child cries for it or throws tantrums, this leads to self-discipline in the children which in turn is a sigh of relief for the parents.

With the child engaged in the daycare the parents have a balanced life approach otherwise taking care of the child 24X7 is a high energy job, and for the first time parents this can turn out to be harrowing and very stressful. It may lead to infight between the two who may end up blaming each other for the current situation and which will only worsen with this blame each other approach.