Will Childcare Policy Lead to Another Mommy War?

~ Laura

When Obama started talking about childcare during the State of the Union last night, the social conservatives on my twittered started grumbling. If Obama was going to hand out money to families with two working parents, would he also give money to families where one parent cares for the children on his/her own? Why was he giving preferences to one form of family over another?

Here’s a sample.

Published by Laura

15 thoughts on “Will Childcare Policy Lead to Another Mommy War?”

  2. A blogger I read, who works outside of the home, and has live in childcare (in another country, in which the care is much less expensive), once wrote that people who stay at home always end up sounding smug about their choice, and, how very important it is for the children. That is, one stays at home “for the children” while one works for other reasons (almost never does one say that one works “for the children”).

    That sample article has that sentiment in droves —

    “I choose to give up a nearly three-figure income in my mid-twenties, at great personal and professional inconvenience, to give my devilish, glorious children the gift of their own mommy’s hand on their owies and her own voice reading them real books, in person. ”

    and, this

    “Mr. President, I don’t give a damn about national economic priorities for other people. I am concerned with my family’s priorities for our children”

    I find this sentiment so prevalent in so much conservative writing, “I don’t give a damn (with something in the middle) for other people”. That’s the sentiment that makes compromise impossible.

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  3. And, it makes me wonder, what happens when there’s a deadline, and she’s working, and her child needs the gift of a mommy’s hand on her owie? Does she drop everything? And, if not, is the mommy who can a better mommy?

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  5. I kinda think that people should be proud of what they do. If they work in the house and care full time for their kids, they probably should be proud of their work. I would think that a person who spent all day creating a beautiful rug or crafting a perect legal document would be proud of their work.

    But I also think that no grown up should use the word “owie.”

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  6. Well, that writer at the Federalist certainly is a whiner. Someone else can’t have something because she doesn’t get. (And what’s that bit about giving up a three figure salary? Does she mean six figure?) Own your decisions. I’ll bet her family pays very little in taxes anyway.

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  7. Here is the mindf*ck again – “you must work work work and buy buy buy because it’s good for the economy. Climb that ladder of success” AND “but you’re a bad bad mom and woman if you DO work work work because you are meant to be at home with your kids”.

    Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You’d better prioritize paid work but you also need to prioritize unpaid work. At the same time.

    And oops, you don’t really get any mat leave or access to safe, affordable childcare. Or heaven forbid, universal healthcare.

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  8. Sandra, I think if you stick with either side of the political fence, you’ll get a clearer message, but not a nicer one.

    Her message (I think) is that anyone who can’t afford to stay home or pay astronomical daycare fees has no business procreating, because they might need help she, as a middle-class SAHM, doesn’t, and if they are stupid enough to have children, they can live in a ditch and eat dirt because freedom!

    The part that I think is funny is that she goes on and on about how right her decision is and how really special a mommy she is and how really special her kids are and how they know she’s really the special-est mommy, which is really irrelevant to her message, which is I can afford this and if you can’t, you shouldn’t have kids.

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    1. More of “born on third and thought she hit a triple” – I can afford childcare/not to do paid work because of my special snowflakeness. And if you can’t afford either, well, you just don’t work hard enough!

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  10. I wasn’t very good at being a SAHM — I was bored and got depressed. I always read these articles as an indictment of me as a person — that I must lack some gene because I didn’t always find it to be fun, fun, fun and rewarding as hell to stay home with little kids. Of course the fact that I had some of the more challenging kids on the planet probably didn’t help– but particularly when my kids were young and I used to read these articles, they used to destroy me, because I used to feel like I was seriously flawed because spending all day listening to an autistic three year old talk about vacuum cleaners didn’t fill me with rapturous joy.

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