At-home parents and child care
Thanks to Alison for the link to this essay from the Family and Home Network with another take on the problems with the official Census statistics on at-home parents. Together with RebelDad’s comments, it’s clear that there are a large number of parents who work some of the time, but not full-time year-round, and who share some or many of the characteristics of at-home parents.
One paragraph from the Family and Home Network summary of the issue jumped out at me:
“However, the most frightening result of misunderstanding the DOL statistics has been in the area of public policy, especially regarding child care. Although “working mothers” include women who participate in the labor force in a variety of ways, the notion persists that every working mother needs and desires substitute care for her children. This mistaken assumption has led many well-intentioned people to routinely misuse the DOL statistics as “proof” of the need for more institutional child care.”
Overall, this organization, whose mission is to support at-home parents and parents who have cut back on paid employment in order to spend more time with their families, is pretty hostile to public support for child care. I disagree with this point of view, but I think it should be taken seriously by advocates of increased support for child care, such as the Family Initiative, which I talked about yesterday, and not just dismissed as an anti-feminist impulse wrapped in pro-child language.
There are two different reasons why an organization of at-home parents might be opposed to public support for child care. One is simply a matter of money — they object to the idea that families who are sacrificing financially in order to enable a parent to stay at home should pay more taxes in order to support child care, especially for families who have higher income than they do. The other is a much more subjective complaint; they believe that public funding of child care is a value statement that child care is just as good as — or better than — parental care. I’m not sure how to respond to this.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t some common ground. Woolsey’s Balancing Act, which would expand child care funding, also includes provisions that would make it easier for parents to work part-time, as well as a provision that would allow states to provide stipends to parents caring for newborns. Both of these are priorities of the Family and Home Network.
