Though I'd Hope To Be More Holmes Than Clouseau.

If I were a parent searching for the scoop on the benefits/detriments of out of home daycare, I probably would have gone about the research differently. I would most likely focus less on empirical studies and more time investigating local daycare centers. It's hard to judge if daycare is good/bad based on studies alone, especially since most studies I found said daycare can either be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the quality of the daycare and how much time a child spends there each week. Thus, I'd check out local daycare centers to see the facilities (to see if they're clean or dirty), and talk to the staff to inquire about activities, general rules/outlook, qualifications of the staff, kid to staff ratio, etc. Then I would judge for myself whether or not the facility is one of quality, and worth sending my (imaginary) child to.

I'm not sure if there is a better way for researcher's to bring their findings to the public. I would suggest making them more "user-friendly," in someway though, as I felt my head swimming when trying to decipher some of the stats used in various articles I'd found. And certainly, their research would have to be more readily available, because not everybody has a handy-dandy student ID number to open the gates of the library's bountiful databases. Perhaps Oprah should get on the case?

In all seriousness, it would be useful if these articles would be more readily available to create greater awareness of the possible benefits/detriments of daycare. And it would be nice if daycare was more regulated in the U.S. so "quality" daycare could be seen as more of a standard and not something you might need detective gear to find.