Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-10-Speech-2-503"
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"en.20090310.36.2-503"2
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"Commissioner, many of my constituents are babies and very young children, and tonight I would like to speak on their behalf, especially as there are many very good speakers tonight who can speak effectively for women in the workplace.
The care a child receives in the earliest years will have an impact on him or her throughout life. Many students of child development, like Maria Montessori, have noted the need a young child has for the presence of his or her mother, or mother substitute. Many of them have also noted a watershed in a child’s development at two years and nine months, after which it becomes safe for a child to spend periods of time away from his or her primary care-giver.
In the last decade, brain-imaging technology has backed up those observations, demonstrating that there is a definite shift in the child’s brain that allows him or her to internalise the primary care-giver, usually the mother, so that she is available to the child in active memory even when she is not present. At that time, the child can understand that the mother, or the substitute primary care-giver, will come back and is not gone forever.
Of course, life is not like that and mothers often work outside the home. They may want to work, or choose to, and even if they do not, they may need to earn because mortgages must be paid and food must be put on the table. Women have been a wonderful addition to the workforce. Their inclusion and equal treatment is a matter of fundamental rights. However, babies do not know, nor are they able to consider what their mothers must, or want to, do. They are hardwired to need what they need. Nature is a very powerful force.
There are always consequences when we go against nature. Having a loving invested mother is the ideal for a child, which we should make every effort to accommodate where a woman wants to be available to her child in those early years. This is because, if that young child needs the constant reassuring presence of its mother, not having her will have an impact, despite all the very worthy reasons for her absence. However, as I said, women work, and we must do our best to at least ensure that if someone other than the primary care-giver is taking care of the child below the age of two years nine months, that it is someone who can give the child as nurturing a care as possible.
Some children are fortunate enough to receive this care from secondary care-givers like fathers, grandparents, other relatives, close neighbours – people who are committed to them and part of their life on an ongoing basis. However, this is simply not the lot of most babies and toddlers who would be cared for in childcare facilities. It behoves us to ensure that those facilities are clean, safe, stimulating and, above all, nurturing, and are not just holding centres.
Children are our future. The foundation they receive is of utmost importance, but the time, space and nurturing children need to grow and develop fully is becoming a luxury afforded to fewer and fewer. For better or for worse, we are shaping Europe’s future by how we raise our children. I would ask the Commission to view this issue for a moment from a child’s point of view. If you could ask a baby whether it wanted its mum or a day-care centre, it would always choose mum. We need to listen to that child as mothers do, and to help them find a way to reconcile home and work to the benefit of both."@en1
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