Universal Early Childhood Daycare Has Been Proven to Damage the Children Who Have Been Through It

By every objective measure, child mental health has gotten dramatically worse in the last few decades. Depression and anxiety, formerly rare in young children, have skyrocketed. In 1986, fewer than 2% of adolescents used a mental health service. Now, nearly a quarter of high school students have a diagnosable mental disorder. Lest we be tempted to blame this rise on better diagnosis or less stigma today, meta analyses can tease out incidence of depressive symptoms (such as sleeplessness, fatigue, isolation) in different eras, allowing a better grasp on actual rates of depression, not over/under-diagnosis. Meta analyses confirm a severe and worsening pediatric mental health crisis.

This modern surge in child distress— with more serious mental illnesses diagnosed at greater frequency and at younger ages— suggests a new kind of childhood trauma, harmful input, or epigenetically-damaging lack — something both widespread and profound, that is not being noticed. As morbid obesity and psychiatric meds now apply to grade schoolers, we must look further upstream for explanations.

Of course, there is one radically-novel, now-fairly-commonplace experience of early life, which came into existence right before our children’s mental health fell off a cliff. In the mid 1980’s, America embraced center-based group daycare for babies under age one.

Consider this timeline:

1971 After two years in operation, KinderCare (a well-known American chain of daycare centers) has 19 centers.

1985 After 16 years in operation, KinderCare opens its 1,000th center, and begins admitting infants under age 1.

1987 Growth of KinderCare hits its peak - now opening a new center every three days. 

1988 Incidence of Autism begins abrupt rise. Vaccines blamed.

1990s Incidence of ADD/ADHD begins abrupt rise. Human genes/biological variation/better diagnosis blamed. Academic performance, after increasing for decades, suddenly stagnates/ slips. Teachers/ low school standards blamed (leads to "No Child Left Behind").

1999 Columbine High shooting... Satanism, violent video games, and heavy metal music blamed. 

2000s Incidence of teen depression and suicide begins abrupt dramatic rise. Bullying, social media, and elite college admission pressures blamed.

2010s Universities report an explosion in mental health problems on campus, with exponentially greater numbers of kids struggling to cope - ‘snowflakes.’ Participation trophies, i-phones, and helicopter parents blamed. Opioids take hold. Pain prescriptions blamed. Dysphoria and self-rejection spike in young people. Innate 'Gender Identity’/ social media influences blamed.

While some of the concurrent forces receiving blame may be relevant and cumulative, we may be missing