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More and more women were starting to work at jobs outside of their homes. This wasn’t a surprise. It had been happening little by little over many years. But sometimes the working women were mothers. And most mothers didn’t bring their children to work with them. |
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This meant that more babies were being taken care of by people other than their mothers. When kids are being watched by someone other than their mother it’s called “child care”. A lot of scientists interested in kids as they grow up began to ask questions. |
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How would kids grow up if they didn’t spend as much time with their mothers when they were babies? Would it make a difference if the kids who were away from their moms received good child care? |
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The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development — called NICHD— studies how to keep children and families healthy. |
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NICHD went to a meeting with the leading researchers who study child care. They talked about what had been learned and about the many new questions researchers had about child care and kids. |
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NICHD wanted to get good answers to the questions. They decided a big study was needed to look at what the kids’ whole lives were like, not just their child care. |
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And it needed to study kids who weren’t in child care, as well as kids who were in child care. |
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