I'm not the mothering kind, but should I ever breed, there is no doubt I would stay home to raise my kids. And here is yet another good reason why.

Young babies will be assessed on their "crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing" under a new national curriculum for under-fives published today.

Staff in every nursery in England will monitor children from birth on their progress towards a set of 69 Government "early learning goals". These goals cover the skill levels expected of five-year-olds in reading, writing and rudimentary maths.

Parents' groups attacked the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which will be a legal requirement for all childminders and children's centres from September 2008.

Margaret Morrissey, from the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "I think it's really sad that we have reached the point now where instead of reducing children's stress we have increased it.

"Will nurseries be worrying more about children reaching these targets than caring for our children?

"It worries me that we are expecting children to reach these targets when they have not even had their first birthday."

Horrific. Kids of the latter generations have already missed out on the real education and love the receive by having a mother at home (or in my case, a Nana). Now those mothers, already feeling guilty for abandoning their kids to daycare, will be made to feel worse if the babies don't squeal at the right pitch. Who comes up with this junk-science?

As one of the commenters of the story put it

Moral: don't put your baby in a nursery; look after it yourself. If you can't do that, it probably means you shouldn't have had the poor mite in the first place.

Labels: Europe, Oddities, Science