Olga Middendorp, alumna Institute of Education, University of London
This seminar explores how decisions about childcare are made at different levels in the Netherlands. The focus is on how this influenced and impacts family lives and especially the rights of babies of approximately three months old (when the maternity leave ends). The ongoing debate about how the care of young children should be arranged is explored in this research. From an Euro-American viewpoint a substantial body of literature in the field of development psychology is anchored in the presumption that throughout hominid evolution mothers were exclusively responsible for nurturing offspring. This viewpoint underestimates the substantial joint effort it requires to rear healthy human children. Cross-cultural studies underscore the fact that multiple carers (next to parents and family) are a common feature in many societies and that this pattern of childcare appears to work. But nowdays, the benefits of this pattern is questioned in many Western societies and institutionalized childcare services do not facilitate it.