An About-Face or a Sign of Support? : Books: Moms and dads thought Penelope Leach was an ally. But many are taking her indictment of day care personally--and that troubles the parenting guru.

Penelope Leach’s “Your Baby and Child” has sold more than 2.5 million copies in 28 countries. Her national cable television show of the same name is shown four times a week. In her native England, she sits on the Commission for Social Justice and is an influential adviser to numerous child-care groups. And parents around the world race to her books for information about their children’s latest bump or hiccup.

Yet, as Leach--one of the trusted troika of child-care gurus that includes pediatricians T. Berry Brazelton and Benjamin Spock--is finding, the transition from expert to advocate can be difficult.

Leach’s newest book, “Children First: What Our Society Must Do--and Is Not Doing--for Our Children Today,” has set off a bomb. The subject of angry editorials and much discourse, as well as confirmation by leading institutions of some of its key conclusions, “Children First” is more than a shot fired against the forces that conspire against good parenting. Rather, it is a fusillade of criticism aimed at the way most Western nations raise their children.

With it, Leach has abruptly placed herself at the forefront of the child advocacy movement, stumping for such causes as children’s rights and extended paid leaves for working parents, and lambasting the quality of day care.

“I meant it to be controversial,” said Leach, 56, whose credentials include a doctorate in psychology from the London School of Economics, decades of involvement in child development--and two grown children. “I was angry on behalf of working parents, particularly mothers . . . and the irrationality of their double burden.”

Far from feeling bolstered or reassured, however, many parents have reacted angrily to “Children First.” Although Leach stresses that her criticism is not aimed at parents, her message that “everything that parents can do is clearly not enough” has opened raw wounds among readers.

A New York Times review sniped that “Children First” made it seem that “to be a working mother is to be somehow derelict.” A 5,000-word article in the British newspaper the Independent characterized some of Leach’s ideas as “naively optimistic” and noted that others have found her philosophies of child-raising “joyless and oppressive.” Brazelton, whose praise adorns the jacket of the book, is reluctant to join the debate but admits to reservations.

“She comes on very strong in a very didactic way without being completely sensitive to the issues in this country,” said Brazelton, adding that some of Leach’s views, particularly those regarding day care, are unsupported by research.

Leach readily acknowledges that the most nettlesome and controversial portions of “Children First” are over what to do about day care. Given the chaotic balancing act parents negotiate between work and child-rearing, Leach recognizes child care as a necessity, but nonetheless an evil one for many.

Not only are the ratios of children to caregivers in center-based care often too high--6 to 1 in many cases--but the quality of care offered is frequently abysmal, she asserts. In a coincidence of timing, reports released by the Carnegie Corp. and the Families & Work Institute soon after the publication of “Children First” reached many of the same conclusions. Said Ellen Galinsky, Families & Work Institute co-president: “Our country just hasn’t made provisions for good day care.”

More troubling to some parents, however, is Leach’s negative view of all infant and toddler day care. Even before “Children First,” Leach stridently opposed such care, saying that it can be detrimental for children under 3.

“Three hours a day in an understaffed nursery where he is special to nobody is far from ideal for a newborn, but nine hours a day is far more likely to damage his development,” writes Leach, who then points to studies showing that toddlers left in day care can become overly aggressive and assertive, and end up identifying with peers, rather than their parents. “That vital continuous one-to-one attention can rarely be achieved in group care, however excellent the facility may be.”

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It is pronouncements such as these that push the hot buttons of her critics: namely, overworked and overwhelmed parents, older feminists wary of a return to “traditional values,” and child development experts who have their own data showing day care to have no harmful and even slightly beneficial effects.

A typical reaction is that of noted child-care expert Carrollee Howes, a professor of education at UCLA. “I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that children shouldn’t be in day care,” said Howes, who cites a long-term study she has done that found no major developmental differences between those in day care and those who stayed at home. “All might not be perfectly happy in families. And good day care provides children with experiences their parents don’t think about.”

Grumbled one mother of a 14-month-old toddler: “Where is (Leach’s) reality base? What is she offering as an alternative?”

But the fact that there are no alternatives, Leach responded, is the very point of her book. “No way am I saying the world would be a better place if women stayed home and watched their 1.2 children,” she said by phone from London. “My moral outrage about day care is reserved for situations in which women feel they are blackmailed back into work when they want to spend more time with their babies. Anybody’s who made a choice and who’s happy about it is outside the scope of this book.”

Despite such apparent equanimity, though, Leach admitted that she is troubled by some of the reaction to “Children First.” Even if the bulk of it arises from what she thinks is outright misinterpretation, or a “shoot the messenger” instinct, the criticism still stings. Said Leach: “The response that saddens me the most is the gut response from women who say, ‘I thought you were a friend to me and now I’ve found you’ve turned on me and bitten me on the back.’ ”

And of the guilty feelings on the part of parents? “I can’t defend against it,” she said. “If it makes people feel guilty, to that end, the book fails and I regret that.”

Of course, it is not the first time the word guilt has been applied to Leach. Much past criticism has focused on her supposedly being overly “child-sensitive” and not mindful of the needs of struggling parents.

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Indeed, of the “expert threesome” of child-care authorities, it is Leach who most consciously attempts to view development from the child’s vantage point. This affinity frequently is noted by critics, some of whom imply that Leach has aided in creating a generation of “little monsters” who keep their terrified parents in thrall.

“I don’t think she’s sensitive to the demands placed on people,” said Theresa Maier, a stay-at-home mother in Hennifer, N.H., who adds that although she may agree with Leach “on an intellectual level,” she still compares unfavorably to Brazelton: “ He’s incredibly focused on the parent.”

Agreed Alison Clarke-Stewart, professor of social ecology at University of California, Irvine, and a child development specialist: “I worry about putting children first. To me, it seems like a slogan. What we all have to do is work out our personal equations the best we can with the limited support we have.”

Leach said she has no argument with that, but then quickly inquired: What are the personal and political alternatives to putting children first? And what would be the consequences of not putting children first? Would it be higher unemployment and crime for the next generations, as some researchers have theorized? Such an option, an adamant Leach said, is one that society cannot afford to explore.

“Putting children first wouldn’t cost the kind of money that people assume it would,” said Leach, who earlier this month addressed the United Nations on the subject of early child care. “People don’t know the costs of not doing it.”