Patrick Gower has slammed a recent NZME column as "clickbait crap" after it suggested parents should not send their children to "factory farm" day care centres.
Writer Deborah Hill Cone said she witnessed a mother complaining about her child's tantrum before daycare and felt bad for the situation the girl was forced into.
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"Little children, babies even, are farmed out to for-profit childcare centres, sometimes for 10 hours a day, because their parents have to go back to work, to become productive economic units. Is this process 'good enough'? I don't think so.."
"I suspect we don't want to examine too closely what effect this has on the developing self. If we knew about it we might have to stop being in denial and face the truth."
The AM Show news presenter Amanda Gillies reacted strongly to the column and called for an end to the parent shaming that came with it.
Newshub national correspondent Gower agreed and added not only does it imply bad things about parents, those who work at day care centres are affected as well.
"I just agree totally with what Amanda said earlier, but I just want to add one more point to actually bash this clickbait crap that is being circulated," he said.
"What about the teachers, the early childhood teachers who work in these places who actually do it to put food on their family's table. They work incredibly hard, I know a lot of them."
Gower went on to say he knew a young woman training to be an educator at one of the centres who works very hard and it's not fair to disparage the profession.
"Aside from bashing the parents, what this piece of crap column is also doing is bashing people who are simply getting out there and trying to help families and kids get along and put food on their own tables," he said.
Newshub.
