Should mothers feel guilty about using a childminder?

I noticed this week a Facebook discussion hosted by www.parenting.com (actually a website for mums, rather than both parents). There was a question by a mother that distressed me: “I’m putting my child into someone else’s care. He is utterly defenseless. He will be vulnerable for years to come. How do I know what the signs of a psychopath/pedophile/munchausen-by-proxy person really are?”
This mother seems to be feeling really bad about sharing the care of her child with someone else. Other mothers responded, several saying that they never share the care of the child with anyone else – they don’t trust anyone.
I find this sad.
Most mothers do not live in families wealthy enough for the mother not to work. And they have no reason at all to feel bad about this. Nearly every mother in human history has had to work. Human families have evolved a pattern of shared care of infants; babies have evolved to thrive on multiple attachments; mothers (and fathers) need constant breaks from caring. So sharing the care of a child with someone else is not a final resort in response to the evil demands of work. It is, if arranged well, a fantastic gift to a child.
So the key question to ask about a childminder is: does this person have the capacity to love my child?
Still, it is neither easy to drop a child off at a childminder (it can feel like your heart is breaking or like walking through treacle) and it is pretty galling if the child, at the end of the day, does not want to come home! But that is parenting – letting the best thing happen for your child really hurts, again and again.

Tagged as: attachment, childminding, guilt, motherhood