The joy is palpable.
The love between a child and a caring parent is perhaps the purest form of love on Earth. In fact, research shows that for people with children, parental love is indeed the most intense, and of course, a child's first bond of love is almost always with its mother and father. But even in the world of healthy attachments and strong family bonds, a viral video from a mom named Tisa takes the cake.
In 2021, Tisa shared a compilation of highlights showing her son's reaction at daycare pickup over five years' time, and it's seriously the most precious thing ever.
Now that's a boy who adores his mama and also has an adorable sense of enthusiasm.
Some new parents may worry that sending their child to daycare will negatively affect their child's attachment to them, but according to psychologist Noam Shpancer Ph.D, that worry is unfounded as long as the family environment is healthy at home.
"Available data indicate that, for most children, parental attachment processes are not disrupted by daycare participation," Shpancer noted in a 2017 article for Psychology Today. "Home variables, such as maternal sensitivity, are the strongest predictors of parent-child attachment, even for daycare children."
Clearly, this kiddo's parent-child attachment hasn't suffered from being in daycare. Research also shows what common sense should also tell us—the quality of daycare matters.
Kids who go to daycare can thrive with good providers and loving parents. Photo credit: Canva
Unfortunately, quality daycare can be prohibitively expensive, which is why the proposed affordable childcare provisions in former President Joe Biden's 2021 Build Back Better plan were a huge deal during his administration. Millions of parents have to work to support their families, and middle-class American families spent an average of 14% of their income on childcare in 2021—double what the limit was under the Build Back Better framework. In 2025, that number has ballooned to 22% according to Care.com's annual Cost for Care Report.
The U.S. remains an outlier in this area. According to The New York Times in 2021, other wealthy nations contribute an average of $14,000 per year for a toddler's child care costs, while the U.S. contributes merely $500. In 2024, Statista revealed that U.S. couples with two children must spend 20% of their disposable income on childcare, while single parents spend 37%, according to data gathered in 2022 from the OECD.
The state of childcare in the U.S. has been called a "broken market." Photo credit: Canva
In comparison, in Switzerland, the second most expensive OECD country in the world, single parents must contribute only 18% of their income if working full-time. It's a huge difference, no matter how you look at it, and in 2023, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the state of childcare in the U.S. a "broken market."
The virtues of stay-at-home motherhood versus working motherhood have been debated for decades, but no one can deny that childcare should be high-quality and affordable, whether a parent chooses to work or has to work. Personally, I was able to and chose to stay home during my kids' early childhoods, but I would be thrilled for my tax dollars to go toward helping all families get the support and childcare they need to make their individual situations work.
Kids being read to at daycarePhoto credit: Canva
At any rate, we love seeing kiddos loving on their mamas, especially ones with infectious grins and delight-filled squeals. Thanks for capturing your sweet boy's joy and sharing it with the rest of us, Tisa. You brought smiles to so many faces and relief to many fellow daycare moms' hearts.
This article originally appeared five years ago. It has been updated.