Some children are cared for in their own homes by either a relative or nonrelative. Family day care is provided in someone else’s home. Daycare centers are located in churches, parents’ workplaces, and the community. Many children are cared for in more than one setting; for example, they may spend the morning at a center and the afternoon with a grandparent.

In their thoughtful analysis of nonparental child care, the developmental psychologists, Lamb and Ahne (2006) pose two questions intended to help researchers reshape their evaluation of modern child care:

These questions help us to realize that it is useless to ask simply whether day care is good or bad for children. Rather researchers must examine the nature, extent, quality, and age at onset of care in combination with the characteristics of children from different backgrounds and needs.

Reliable facts about day care are hard to come by, chiefly because of the lack of any U. S. national policy that would provide hard data. There are believed to be more than 116,000 licensed childcare centers in the United States and 254,000 licensed child care homes. The types of childcare arrangement vary dramatically: One mother may charge another mother several dollars to take care of her child; a relative may care for several family children; churches, businesses, and charities may run large operations; some centers may be sponsored by local or state government as an aid to the less affluent; other centers are run on a pay-as-you-go basis. In 2003, the average cost of child care for one child in a childcare center ranged from $4000 to $6000 per year. Almost everyone agrees that the best centers are staffed by teachers who specialize in daycare services (about 25% of daycare personnel).

There has been considerable concern that nonparent child care can disrupt the attachment between mother and child, or have negative effects on the child’s social development. Opponents of
this view counter that for disadvantaged children, day care can be a form of early intervention, providing an enriching environment when one does not exist at home.