I always thought I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I spent so long trying to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and have a healthy, full-term pregnancy that I probably over-romanticized it. I am extremely grateful that I was able to be our daughter’s full-time caregiver for several years.
What surprised me was discovering that wanting to be home with my child and wanting something professionally fulfilling for myself could coexist. I have always loved being a mom, but I also wanted work that engaged a different part of my brain, gave me a sense of purpose outside my family, and, yes, brought in some money because, you know, kids are expensive.
Maybe that’s why a story about child care caught my attention a few days ago.
The Trump administration is reportedly drafting a proposal that would allow some married couples with a stay-at-home parent to receive money from the Child Care and Development Fund, a federal program currently designed primarily to help lower- and moderate-income parents pay for child care so they can work, attend school, or receive job training.
I want to be really clear about something before I go any further: I don’t object to supporting stay-at-home parents. Quite the opposite. I think we profoundly undervalue caregiving in this country.
But here’s the catch.
The proposal doesn’t create a new pot of money to support those families. It would expand eligibility to married couples with a stay-at-home parent using the same approximately $12 billion fund currently helping working families pay for child care. About 80 percent of the 870,000 families currently receiving these subsidies are headed by single working parents, most of them mothers. This program is already overburdened, with hundreds of thousands of children who are eligible for child-care assistance currently sitting on waiting lists across the country so we are potentially taking an already inadequate resource and asking even more families to compete for it.
Supporting caregiving and making child care affordable don’t have to be competing priorities. Both address real needs for families, but asking an already overburdened program to do both jobs without adding enough money doesn’t make either problem go away. It divides an inadequate pool of resources among even more families.
Maybe my own experience is part of the reason. When Alex was in the army, our life wasn’t particularly conducive to building a traditional career. Every few years, I was starting over in a new city, sometimes a new country, where I knew no one and had no professional network. And, as we all know, full-time child care is expensive enough that there were times when working simply didn’t make financial sense.
I found flexible work where I could. The multitude of issues surrounding military spouse employment could be an entire series of posts, but while military life magnifies the problem, the basic themes resonate with basically every parent I know.
[Please enjoy this video of the last day of preschool which also meant the last day of paying a fortune for daily child care.]
I have watched friends and family members agonize over whether going back to work was worth it once they calculated the cost of daycare. I’ve seen both women and men turn down promotions because the hours wouldn’t work for their families. I’ve had countless conversations with people debating whether they could afford to have another child, whether someone should leave a job they loved, or whether taking a job beneath their qualifications was worth it because the schedule worked.
I’ve watched people cobble together grandparents and babysitters and after-school programs like they’re planning a military operation. Anyone who has ever logged onto a website at the exact second summer-camp registration opens because you MUST HAVE WEEK SEVEN knows that days off from school and summers are their own special child-care nightmare.
Too often I hear politicians and policymakers talk about child-care choices as though these decisions are made in a vacuum. Spoiler alert: they aren’t. There is what you want to do, what you can afford to do, and what the known laws of physics allow you to do.
There is the career you want and theoretically could have, and then there is the daycare bill. There is the job you would love to take, and then there is the fact that some adult has to be at school pickup at 3:15.
Caregiving in this country is profoundly undervalued—not particularly surprising given which gender still does the bulk of it—but supporting stay-at-home parents and helping working parents afford child care don’t have to be competing priorities.
Child care isn’t a lifestyle perk for working mothers. Child care is economic infrastructure.
We understand that people need roads to get to work. We understand that businesses need electricity and broadband, yet somehow we continue pretending that the person caring for a three-year-old while her mother goes to work is merely a private family matter rather than one of the things making the entire economy function.
Women disproportionately pay the price for that fictional narrative. We pay it in lost wages and missed promotions. We pay it in years out of the workforce. We pay it in retirement savings and Social Security benefits and careers that never quite recover their trajectory. We don’t only have a wage gap in the U.S.; we also have an opportunity gap.
So by all means, let’s support mothers who want to stay home! Let’s support mothers who want to work! Let’s support the woman who wants to work three days a week, the woman who wants to run a company, and the woman who wants to spend five years at home with her children and then figure out what comes next! While we’re at it, let’s acknowledge that plenty of fathers are making these calculations, too!
I don’t regret the choices I made, but I also know they weren’t made on a blank sheet of paper. Over the past three weeks, more than one person has asked me—in the course of a conversation about what I want to do next—what I would do if I could do anything, and this question is basically impossible to answer. I still have a child in school, my husband is the main breadwinner in our family, and I have a mortgage and responsibilities. I can’t just do anything. I frankly don’t know anyone who can.
Families are complicated.
Careers are complicated.
Parenting is complicated.
Money is complicated.
There is no single arrangement that works for everyone, and that’s what pro-family policies must recognize. Supporting families absolutely shouldn’t mean deciding which kind of family people ought to build.
It should mean giving them a fighting chance to build the one that actually works for them.
Wait! How'd Ellie remember her teachers' names? There are so many! And how sweet that she loved drawing pictures of herself and her mommy. Wonder if she's becoming a “beautiful singer.” One way or another, may she grow beautifully into her place in the world. 💜
I still remember Ms. Marret, my kindergarten teacher, her name and her kindness to me. And that was a long time ago!
Thanks so much for sharing. I just called my reps last night to tell them to vote no on legislation regarding this. I am a mother of 4 children and just saw my youngest graduate from high school this summer. It is literally by the grace of God that we are still all intact! However, I said my prayers and then worked my butt off to make it happen with little to no help from their fathers and families.
I have become a single mother several times in my life and a stay-at-home mother. I am also a former military wife and a Veteran. Raising kids is hard and requires much sacrifice, so this is where I am coming from when I say that this is a bad idea.
Ladies, sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you will find that all of your dreams of being a traditional wife and staying home to raise your beautiful children can be blasted into oblivion in seconds. An affair, domestic abuse, a spouse's death, injury or illness. All of these things, force many women back into the workforce.
When I became single, each time I needed childcare assistance in order to be able to work. I could never afford to do it on my own without this help. I didn't have family support. My sisters were working too and my mother was often dealing with chronic pain and illness. We relied on friends and family for the odd hours and small stuff, but that was it. Childcare subsidies made it possible for me to work full-time and go back to school.
When I did get to stay home, it was because the cost of childcare cost more than I could earn, so with my current husband and ex-husband, I learned to create and follow a budget, we kept our debt little to nothing, I cook almost all meals and have become very savvy in the kitchen. I learned natural and safe cleaning hacks, sewing, basic electronics, plumbing, window rescreening. I am now a skilled handyman and basic mechanic! I did my own nails and colored my own hair, got cheap hair cuts. I, also, shopped at thrift stores and 2nd hand children's shops. I found cheap things to do, picnics, parks, friend's pools. I got very creative and resourceful. I know many amazing women are familiar with these tactics. I also know a great dad who stayed home and raised the kids while his wife built her career in the sciences and supported the family. These are the sacrifices that are made to stay home.
So with that said, I don't want to say that we shouldn't support mothers to stay home. We should absolutely do this! Because I believe it is healthier for families to have a loving, functioning parent at home to support the family, especially while the kids are babies and toddlers, and in some cases, teenagers. I also understand that even with all that you do, you still won't have enough sometimes and need a reliable support network. Emergencies are an issue and make it hard to save money for rainy days. So my suggestions for helping families to have a care-giver stay home would be to provide universal healthcare, provide SNAP benefits, energy subsidies, and free internet for the lowest-wage earners and those going through a crisis. Support your local libraries. Educate children and families in basic economics, budget building, banking, and investments. Highschool is a great time to plant these seeds. Support communities to build neighborhood groups that can support one another. Keep families stable in homes so they can build communities and connections. I have been homeless and transient after a divorce. It's so hard to thrive when you are trying to survive.
If you have ideas, write or call local, state, and federal reps! Much love to everyone and let's fight for the best!