What was the major ideas in 1930s-1940s about childcare?

Answer 1

A Brief History of Childcare in the 1930's and 40's:

During the 1930's, daycare was supported by the Federal government because they wanted to find a way to employ the unemployed. This happened again during WW2 when the government sponsored 400,000 preschool children to go to day-cares because they needed mothers to work in factories to create war supplies, as opposed to taking care of their children. (Ironically, after the war government halted all support of childcare and encouraged mothers to go home and take care of their children.) Neither of these occurrences happened for the benefits of the child, but instead to benefit the government.

The first privately owned daycare was begun in 1943 at the Kaiser Shipyards in Portland, Oregon, where there were two 24 hour day-cares opened at both of their gates to watch children, with the hope to reduce rates of absenteeism in mothers with kids. These centers both had a nurse on site for those that were sick, and also provided hot meals for moms to take home with them. The centers were the first models of child-centered construction, because they were built around a courtyard with wading pools. The playrooms branched off of the courtyards had large windows and window seats so kids could watch the construction taking place in the shipyards. Cost of the care was shared partly by parents and partly by the Kaiser company. In the two years they were open they served 3,811 different children!

So, I suppose you could conclude from all that, that the major ideas at first were that by starting childcare, they could provide jobs for the unemployed, shifting to doing away with the "nuisance" children were to the government as they hindered production of war materials, to a way to manage absenteeism at a shipyard, finally becoming something that could benefit the children in the process!