Thousands of families in Peru face steep hurdles and severe difficulties as they work to build stability and self-sufficiency while safeguarding their children's well-being. That commitment drives them to adopt a range of strategies to avoid being overtaken by scarcity or a lack of resources. At the same time, they strive not to neglect their role as parents in the slightest – offering quality time, strengthening secure attachment, and providing the kind of accompaniment that builds a healthy, trusting bond with their children.

Yet along that path, dilemmas arise that breed uncertainty in caregivers, pushing them into a dead-end limbo that forces them to overthink their own future and their family's. Among these factors are work, career growth, savings, basic needs, and – most importantly – their own emotional well-being.

Sustaining personal development alongside child-rearing, while guaranteeing safe and responsible care, is no easy feat to maintain. The State must safeguard the mental health of thousands of families. Doing so means investing in the country's future and sustainability, starting from the earliest years of children's lives, so they can develop their potential and grow into responsible, productive citizens. In that light, how important is it to implement a National Care System that benefits both families and children?

Mental Health as a Priority

The family is one of the fundamental spaces for human development. It is there that a child's experiences, reasoning, and emotions intermingle, mature, and help forge their personality. The more education within the home, the greater the outcomes for their integral development.

The reality, however, is far more stark. The emotional well-being of many children is at risk due to the deteriorating mental health of their caregivers. The Baltazar and Nicolas Foundation, together with the Faculty of Psychology at PUCP, published a survey revealing that, out of a total of 43,923 caregivers, 17% are at risk of difficulties in their overall well-being and feel stressed when carrying out parenting tasks.

The effects of this dilemma not only harm caregivers' health but also indirectly affect children, who need a responsible adult for their integral development. When a caregiver's emotional health deteriorates, the child's healthy development can be compromised as well.

The situation can be even more complex in other contexts, when parenting is undertaken alone. In Peru, this reality falls largely on mothers, who – in taking on sole responsibility for their children's care – face overwhelming and exhausting circumstances. The consequences for their mental health can be tied to factors such as economic instability, lack of opportunities, precarious employment, and the social prejudices they confront every day.

Experts have warned that this problem not only represents a risk to early childhood but can also constitute a form of psychological and economic violence against Peruvian women, who are often stereotyped as "housewives" or "responsible for the home." This conception can diminish their capabilities and affect their income, especially considering that in Peru, as in other Latin American countries, care work is unpaid.

The 2024 National Time Use Survey, produced by INEI, reports that women devote twice as much time as men to unpaid work. The result reflects the difficult situation of many mothers who show notable signs of exhaustion and stress from the overload. It is worth noting that, although the lack of a National Care System can harm both mothers and fathers, 36% of households are led by women and 20% have no partner, according to the 2023 National Household Survey.

In an interview with Miriam Laguna, a psychologist and researcher on childhood and adolescence, she noted that this excessive burden "reduces availability and sensitivity" in parenting, affecting the important bond between mother and child.
"Children perceive their caregiver's stress, even if they don't express it in words – a child feels what is happening to their mother. In early childhood, children depend on their caregiver's emotional state," she said.

The need to properly implement a National Care System is not solely about personal benefit for caregivers. It also means thinking about the country's productivity, its economy, and the integral development of its people – factors that help guarantee society's sustainability.

What Is Missing?

Over the years, Peru has not fallen behind in building a safe and healthy childhood. In terms of public policy, Peru has made very significant progress, standing as "a world example in early childhood development policies," as Paola Bustamante, former Minister of Development and Social Inclusion, recently put it.

Along those lines, the former official emphasized that Peru has all the instruments and the normative framework in its favour to properly implement actions aimed at caring for early childhood. However, the law cannot remain on paper – it requires political will to become concrete action.

The coalition "Perú Que Cuida a Su Niñez" identified the main problem as the lack of coordination among existing services and programmes for early childhood development. It argued that, despite Peru having 14 programmes aimed at children, these prove insufficient due to the disconnect between the Ministries of Health, Education, MIDIS, and MIMP, which set their own objectives and targets and, in some cases, end up working in isolation, competing with one another.

Another important point is access to these programmes, where there are still people who have no opportunity to receive the benefit of State services and face a cumbersome bureaucratic process that discourages them from continuing. In response, they concluded that more programmes are not needed – rather, they need to be organized and made to function in an integrated way.

The message is clear: investing in care is not an isolated expense, but a long-term social investment and a form of protection for early childhood and for the entire future of a society.