Sir, - Victoria White refers (News Features, December 1st) to "the earthquake which followed the publication of [Jay] Belsky's research last year" (concluding that parental care is seriously superior to child care) as if this was the first warning tremor on this vitally important topic.
Apart from Belsky's own earlier utterances, there is a wealth of literature on this subject published in the US and Britain during the past 25 years. In the past decade the Institute of Economic Affairs, London has published several books which warrant study by anyone interested in the well-being of the family in general and in childcare and its effects in particular. Of special importance is Patricia Morgan's Who needs Parents? The Effects of Childcare and Early Education in Britain and the USA (1996).
Morgan is senior research fellow at the institute and specialises in criminology and family policy. The Guardian, hardly noted for its conservatism, said of her book that it "will one day be recognised as the Silent Spring of domestic life."
Comments by Dr Garret FitzGerald in his column of December 1st are very relevant: "It is. . .distressing that so few Irish politicians have shown sensitivity to the adverse consequences of the changes in the role of the family in Irish life that have taken place under their noses in the past one-third of a century." - Yours, etc.,
Shane O'Connor, Green Road, Newbridge, Co Kildare.