Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2009
352 pages
Genre: Advice
Publication Information
Who is caring for today's children? How well are they succeeding at it? What does care cost, and who is paying for it? How do parents go about choosing care for their children, and are they satisfied with what they find? Penelope Leach answers these and other urgent questions with facts and figures gathered from the most current research, brought to life by the voices of parents, including those involved in her own five-year study.
She delineates the challenge (fitting children's unchanged needs into changing societal demands) and the dilemma of parents (needing to be in two places at once) and describes in detail the various ways Western countries address that challenge: care given by family and nonfamily; in the child’s home, other homes, professional settings; paid for, free, government-funded. Considering the issues from various viewpoints—of politicians, policy makers, parents, and children themselves—she discusses the effects of each kind of care for children of different ages. She makes recommendations for the honest evaluation of the complex issues surrounding child care, and for acting on them in the best interest of children.
Speaking lucidly and candidly about every aspect of child care—including the often-hidden feelings and fears of parents—Penelope Leach gives us a timely and invaluable book that presents the essential information we need to build and implement an agenda for true change.
"Starred Review. Until we embrace children as everyone's responsibility, Leach insists, the “working/caring conundrum” will continue .... " - Publishers Weekly.
"Child Care Today is an update on the state of child care in the 21st century. In addressing 'the real issues in combining the human essentials of earning and caregiving,' Leach looks at the things that matter." – Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
This information about Child Care Today was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Penelope Leach, best known for Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five (1977) was educated at Cambridge University and at the London School of Economics, where she received her Ph.D. in psychology. A Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a founding member of the UK branch of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, she works on both sides of the Atlantic for organizations concerned with prenatal care and birth, family-friendly working practices, child care, and early-years education. She lives in Lewes, England.
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