Some daycare advocates mistakenly use the story
of the Prophet Muhammad's Bedouin wet-nurse as justification for using
substitute care.
Amina, Muhammad's widowed mother, put him in the care of Halima Sadia, a
Bedouin woman who lived in the desert southeast of the city "to grow up away
from Makkah and her epidemics"*.
The ancient overcrowded city of Mecca was unsanitary and plagued with
sickness, not unlike today's daycares.
Far from being an endorsement of daycare, Muhammad's concerned mother
entrusted her only child to Halima's care precisely to avoid
conditions found in today's
daycares!
*-- The Life of Muhammad, by
Muhammad Husayn Haykal © 1976, p 50
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