Lead
The return date is set. The childcare enrollment is confirmed. What's left, it seems, is the logistics: surviving the settling-in period, getting through the first week back at the office.
Yet something nags. "Returning to work too early harms the child" — that phrase comes from one friend. "Daycare is actually good for development" — that phrase comes from another. Both sound credible. Neither feels complete.
This article works through the evidence on the timing of parental return to work and its relationship to child development and parental mental health. The goal is not to deliver a verdict — the research can't — but to separate what is known from what is often assumed.