Child care, day care,

before school care, after school care, long day care, out of school hours care... what else can you think of?
The Opposition Leader announced that "(his) government will  increase...." both the number of places available and the amount the staff are paid to work with children outside school ages and outside the school day.
It's a growing industry. Now there is a call for all children to be in this sort of care from age three.  Mum - or perhaps Dad - needs to go back to work. Children need to have "learning experiences" that apparently they can only get away from home.
When I was a kitten we had something called "kindergarten". I hated it. Fortunately it was not a full time experience. I hated being made to sing action songs, sit on a scratchy hessian mat to be told a story, being told I could only use three colours for painting and much more. Yes I admit that part of the problem was that I was often hopeless at doing the sort of actions required, I could read the stories to myself and I knew that mixing red and blue would make purple and I wanted to put "salvation jane" (a pretty purple flowered but noxious weed) into my picture.
I hate to think what it would be like for me now.
It seems wrong to me that small children are herded off to some sort of babysitting/childminding service every working day. There are children who are left there at eight in the morning and picked up at six in the evening - five days a week. They scarcely know their parents. 
And it costs a lot of money to have a child in care that long. Have more than one child and the cost is of course even greater. It isn't just the money though it is the other cost. It is often the child care staff who hear the first word, see the first steps, find out the child is left or right handed, see the first attempts to draw or paint or race a car around the sand pit and much more. 
They are also the people who teach the child about the world  around them, how to react to it and behave in it. It's the child's birthday? No, I'm sorry we can't have cake here - or any other food brought in. We can't do anything to celebrate it either because someone else might feel left out. We don't celebrate  Christmas because it might be offensive to those who don't. We will teach your child about climate change, racial discrimination, and same sex marriage. We don't want "princess" dolls here or Thomas the Tank Engine  either. 
And no, I am not exaggerating. I know three local child minding units that follow all that. If the parents aren't happy about it then they can try, if possible, to find somewhere else for their child to go.
There are parents, particularly mothers, who don't want to go back to work but believe they must. They believe they will "regret" it later and that returning to work is about a career and job satisfaction. They believe that staying home with their children is wrong, that the children need to be in some sort of child care so that they will have "experiences"  which will set  them up for success school.
Day care or kindergarten or whatever you want to call it isn't a bad thing. It can be a good thing. Some  children like it - or have at least grown used to it.  Having a career is not a bad thing either, especially if you feel you want  the challenge and the adult company. 
But I think we need to find ways of being much more flexible about these things. We need ways for parents to work part time, to job-share so that they can spend more time with their own children. We need to look on parenting as a worthy activity.
And that  is not the only thing wrong. The twins in the next street can't go dressed the same today - the day care centre staff have told their mother that is unacceptable because "it doesn't acknowledge them as individuals". 
Who is bringing up the children?