By Glen Williams
Pictures: Grant Turner
Love her or hate her, the Aussie author is keen to set the record straight about her views, after claiming childcare damages babies’ brains.
One minute she was our most loved children’s author, the fun-loving mum with the vibrant imagination who gave us such classics as Possum Magic and Koala Lu.
Mem Fox, the zany lady with the trademark shock of red hair and a passion for encouraging kids to read, suddenly found herself embroiled in the childcare debate. It was claimed she believed sending babies to daycare was a form of child abuse, that daycare for babies could even lead to brain damage. The furore has left the besieged Mem and her family shaken. “It’s been a horrid time actually,” she told Woman’s Day from the sanctuary of her Adelaide home.
“If I was adored, I’ve put a bullet hole through it these last few weeks.”
Mem, 62, agreed to talk to Woman’s Day to set the record straight.
Your daughter Chloe has described you as a, “crazy missionary.” Is that how you see yourself?
(Roars with laughter). Absolutely, spot on. My parents were crazy missionaries, real missionaries. And I’m just a crazy missionary of literacy.
What is your main mission?
It’s begging people to read to their babies and their toddlers every single day from the age of one week old, until they go to school. If kids still want their parents to read out loud to them after they have gone to school, then that is just brilliant. But understand, those first five years are the most important years in a child’s education.
In September, you were accused of saying childcare for babies was akin to child abuse.
I did not say that, I was quoting someone else. (At this point in time her protective husband, Malcolm, bursts in. “Please, don’t talk about childcare and no politics,” he says, gravely, before leaving). It’s been terribly hard on Malcolm. It’s been terribly hard on my daughter and my husband.
I didn’t say what has been reported, I was quoting a childcare worker. Someone who actually worked with children and babies every day.
Did you believe those you were quoting? And what you were actually saying?
I think it’s overstating the case. But I’m only quoting doctors. I am quoting a wonderful doctor in Melbourne, Dr Frank Oberklaid at the Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital. And I’m quoting an absolutely astounding guy called Dr Fraser Mustard who has influenced all of my thinking. Not only them, but a huge number of paediatricians in the United States, and in London, and the entire thinking of Scandinavian countries. All of these people are saying what I said, but because I said it, I was heard. The message got through because I said it. And I copped it when I was the mouthpiece.
What was your motivation for speaking out? Did you really wish to be embroiled in such controversy?
I absolutely didn’t. This is childcare, it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s not my mission in life. My mission in life is to love parents, encourage them to love kids and encourage anybody to adore each other and get on.
I don’t want to talk about childcare ever again. And I’ll tell you why. I have been married to my husband for 40 years on January 2, he is my closest friend. And I have promised him the Woman’s Day interview will be the end of it because it’s caused me so much grief and that has grieved him. It’s like him watching me have an asthma attack. He can’t do anything about it. He just has to sit back and watch me make my own self suffer. It’s been so terrible for him.
What did it feel like to have a tidal wave of contempt surging towards you after making such an inflammatory statement?
That tidal wave of contempt wasn’t as big as everybody thought. Yet, in two days, the tidal wave, like a Tsunami, changed direction. I was swamped by support. Even yesterday another doctor said, “I’m right behind you. Please don’t stop.” Well I am stopping because it’s the doctors’ duty now to get off their bottoms and say much more loudly, what they have in a way, forced me to say. I’m not saying it any more. I’m over it. My husband is beside himself, absolutely beside himself. I’m merely the mouthpiece. And it’s only because I’ve got a high profile and people associate me with children that this caused such a stir.
You fanned the flames again by saying that babies aged less than 12 months who were placed in childcare would suffer brain damage?
They do. Their brains just don’t develop in the same way. They can’t develop in the same way, as they don’t have as much touch. Fraser Mustard says this, and he’s a worldwide researcher — I’m the mouthpiece, I’m not saying it myself. Fraser Mustard says that the importance of touch in the first four months of life cannot be overstated. When children are touched and held that is when the learning pathways in their brain are developed. If they are in childcare in the first six months of life, in a busy childcare situation, that it cannot be held, then that child’s brain will not be damaged, but it will be negatively affected.
Many parents would ask, “What choice do I have, but to send my child to childcare?”
Some people don’t have an alternative. All I want them to know, even if they don’t have an alternative, is they have to know the consequences. They can do whatever they like, but I have to say, “These are the consequences”. I’m not saying don’t do it because lots of people have to. I was working when my daughter was six weeks, but she was never in childcare. The two of us, Malcolm and I, organised and juggled so that some times we hired a girl to look after her for two days. Some time we had a sort of hired granny because we had no support in this country whatsoever because both our families lived overseas. But she was never in full time childcare. But that didn’t stop me from working. I worked because I had to. My husband was a full time student. I had to work. I understand that people have to work. It’s so tough.
What do you say to the parents who feel they have no choice but to opt for childcare?
You have to say to yourself, “Should I have this child at this point?” You have to say that. It’s so heartbreaking believe me, I do know this.
A friend looked after my daughter for some years and I cried every time I left her. I know how terrible it is to leave a child in somebody else’s care. I’m also on the mum’s side here and the dad’s side because mums and dads suffer often when they take their darling children to childcare and they know they aren’t going to see them until the end of the day. It’s heartbreaking for parents. So if you have to do that in the first six months, you actually need to say, “Is this the right time that we should be doing this?”
Should the Government be assisting families to avoid childcare?
I’ve just come from Norway. In Norway you and I would not be having this conversation, because there, no child under 12 months is in childcare. There they pay for parents to look after children. They have 12 months of Parental Leave for the mother, two months of Parental Leave for the father. They value children and their childhoods so highly in Scandinavian countries that they don’t have this kind of conversation that we’re having. This is a whole Government thing. And to give our Government its due, they are currently working on it. In Sweden they don’t want children in childcare until they can walk, because when a child can walk they can move away from any situation that distresses them.
Do you truly believe that babies “would not want” the sort of parents who send them to day care?
I’m not answering that question.
Did you set out to be outrageous? The Germaine Greer of children’s authors?
Look, this whole thing was an accident. I didn’t set out to do anything. I was asked by the childcare union to speak on their behalf for better conditions for babies by having more staff and better trained staff in childcare centres. I said, “No, childcare isn’t my area”. They said, “Please come, because if you don’t come, the press won’t come. And we’re desperate for the press to come.” I said, “I’m not coming, it’s not my area. I don’t know about it.” So they gave me tons of information which just fired me up. It all just came together and somehow it was like putting a match to petrol. I didn’t really light the match, I was just there when it was lit.
People are saying, “Shouldn’t she be defending women? What happened to the sisterhood?”
Yes, of course. I’m not anti-feminist, I’m pro-baby. I’m very, very pro-baby. Nobody is more feminist that I am. I read the Female Eunuch very shortly after it was published. In any case even if I hadn’t read the book, both my parents were both so pro-women. I come from a feminist, raging trajectory of feminism. I’m saying to all women go for it. But at the same time I’m saying, guys and girls, with all of this “going for it”, be kind to your children.
**Interview continues…
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