Ehhh… better for the kid? Kids can get plenty of social interactions and variety with a stay at home parent.
Plus they get the benefit of time with parents, parents can focus on doing things they think is valuable for the kid.
To somehow claim that childcare comes at no cost for kids is naive.
> Kids can get plenty of social interactions and variety with a stay at home parent.
The keyword there is "can". They can, it's just less likely. Especially when a parent takes the "stay at home" part too literal.
> To somehow claim that childcare comes at no cost for kids is naive.
Well, my experience with my kids was that their daycare was beneficial for them. They did not always want to go, but they definitely enjoyed all their days there. And especially for the first one, they had a lot of experiences that my wife and I would never have even considered as an option.
Comparing them to their classmates when school started, they were way ahead in lots of things. Absolutely in language development, socialization and being able to focus. They were also just way less, for lack of a better term, worried about everything. They knew that the world does not revolve around mommy and daddy, and that they'd be fine in new environments.
I'm not sure I'd use your kids alone as a representation of the experience of day care for the entire population.
And you're only counting the benefits of daycare, but ignoring the opportunity cost of less time with parents and the benefits that come from that.
I don't disagree that there are benefits to daycare, but where is the optimum? A few hours a day? Or the kids in daycare from 8am to 6pm, so they see their parents for maybe 2 hours a day before bed time?