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The Daily Signal
The Preschool
Mirage
Grow the economy, not government intervention in child care.
By Lindsey Burke & Rachel Sheffield
December 10, 2014
The Obama administration has just announced a new $1 billion initiative
($750 million in federal grants and the remainder from private funding)
to enroll more children in government preschool programs. The new
measure is being announced formally at the White House Summit on Early
Education this morning.
The push comes on the heels of President Obama’s speech on women and
the economy, recently delivered at Rhode Island College. In that speech
the president suggested that parents’ only child-care options are
unaffordable day care, “cheaper” (by which he appears to mean
“poor-quality”) day care, or no day care at all. As a result, Mr. Obama
said, “someone, usually Mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the
kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her
life as a result. And that’s not a choice we want Americans to make”
(emphasis added).
This was no ad lib. The statement was in the president’s prepared
remarks. Surely he didn’t intend to imply that parents who stay home
with the kids are making an unfortunate, if not irresponsible,
decision, yet his remarks hit many an ear — and many good sensibilities
— that way. Millions of moms do want to stay at home with their
children. Indeed, only 23 percent of married mothers say that working
full-time is their ideal scenario, according to the Pew Research Center.
Most women prefer to work less than full-time and view staying at home
with their children as the best choice they could make. And more and
more women are making that choice. Since 1999, the percentage of women
opting to stay at home has increased by 6 percentage points.
Pew found that 67 percent of mothers overall prefer to work either
part-time (47 percent) or not at all (20 percent). Another Pew survey
found that married mothers who are able to cut back at work are happier
on average. And although many mothers need or want to work, policies
shouldn’t create disincentives for families to care for their own
children...
Read the rest of the article at The Daily Signal
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