Parents Flock to Organized Child Care : Report shows professional facilities steadily gaining ground over relatives, other baby-sitting options.

Every morning, Carol Sneyd dresses her 2 1/2-year-old son, Evan, secures him in his car seat with his trusty Pooh bear and drives him across town to the Warner Bros. Children Center in Burbank, Calif., where he spends the day with 100 or so other toddlers.

Sneyd, an advertising executive, turned to organized day care after giving up on other options, including a family member and a small day care provider referred by an agency.

And her experience is increasingly typical, the Census Bureau said in a report to be released today, as improving economic circumstances, declining numbers of stay-at-home fathers and disillusionment with other arrangements pushes use of organized child care to an all-time high.

According to the census analysis, 30% of preschoolers with working mothers were cared for in organized child care facilities in 1993, up from 23% only two years earlier. The increase reverses a steady decline from 1988 to 1991 in the percentage of preschoolers participating in organized child care--a category that includes day care centers, nursery schools and preschools.

The report says that 9.9 million children under age 5 whose mothers worked were provided some form of child care in 1993. Of those, 16% were cared for by their fathers, 17% by their grandparents and 9% by other relatives. A total of 30% were enrolled in organized child care facilities, while 21% were watched by “family day care providers,” which refers to nonrelatives who care for one or more children in their homes. Six percent were watched by their working mothers and 1% were placed in kindergarten at an early age.

Lynne Casper, author of the report, said the shift in type of child care that parents are choosing is directly connected to the economic health of the nation and of individual families.

“The latest evidence shows that economics dictates child care decisions more than any other factor,” Casper said. “The more you can afford organized child care, the more likely you are to use it.”

After climbing steadily for several years, the percentage of children cared for by their fathers declined from a high of 20% in 1991 to 16% in 1993, the study shows. Census officials suggest the change has more to do with economic circumstances than with the desire of fathers to become more involved in child-rearing.

“The economy has been running the show. In the past, the recession caused a lot of fathers to be available for child care duties,” Casper said, adding that there were fewer part-time working fathers in 1993, making it more difficult for them to help with child care.

A secondary reason for the apparent popularity of organized child care is the impact of media coverage on public perceptions of smaller, informal care providers.

“People have switched from family day care in part because of the negative media surrounding it,” Casper said. “When people see a day care provider smacking kids, that is a very powerful and disturbing image. That really scares people.”

Sneyd said TV exposes of alleged child abuse influenced her decision to switch to a large child care facility.

“It’s scary to think of what could be going on,” she said. “To take the chance is not worth it.”

Organized day care, she added, “presented so much more security. There are so many more pairs of eyes. If something bad was happening, I think I’d find out.”

Before enrolling Evan at the Warner Bros. center, Sneyd tried using a relative and informal child care. Neither was satisfactory.

“I first used my cousin, and that was a nightmare. Everything went wrong,” she said. “Then I used someone who I found through referral services. The woman seemed nice, but after I left him there the first day, I just kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, where did I leave my kid?’ Then I found out she had a boarder, who looked like he was drunk. . . . I found out later that the woman smoked. She said she didn’t smoke around the children, but who knows?”

The census report found that the South had the highest percentage of preschoolers enrolled in organized day care facilities. And children in poor families were almost twice as likely as other children to be cared for by relatives. The average weekly cost of child care in 1993 was $79, an increase of $2 from 1991, the study shows.