“That’s not a choice we want Americans to make”

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 11:09 pm by Jane the Actuary

“That’s not a choice we want Americans to make” 2015-02-26T23:09:52-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Yes, Obama said that with reference to stay-at-home mothers. Yes, he will weasel out of it by saying he was misconstrued, as with the “you didn’t build that line.” And he’ll say that his point was actually that he wanted women not to be limited in their choices by unavailability of daycare.

The Federalist pushes back against this rather well, and I hadn’t originally planned to write on this because so many others have pushed back already. (By the way, I’m adding them to the ol’ blogroll, even though I’m not quite sure about them as a source.)

But here’s the thing: he’s talking about government-provided “preschool,” but the preschool years are actually the smallest portion of pre-schoolage childcare, and the easiest to manage. It’s the infancy and toddler years where families have difficulty finding acceptable care (“acceptable” meaning “care that feels sufficiently home-like”) that’s easy on the budget, because of the lower caregiver-child ratios needed. His argument of “we need to prevent women from becoming stay-at-home moms” only works if he wants government to provide free (or generously sliding-scale-based) daycare at all ages.

And “free daycare” doesn’t grant but takes away choices. Really — imagine a world in which takes were high enough to fund daycare centers of exceptional generosity, open as many hours as desired, with ratios low enough for the youngest to never be left in bouncy seats or swings for long hours. That’s pretty much the story in Norway, if I remember correctly. And the result is — because the high taxes necessitate two earners and because of the social pressure and the lack of support structures for SAHMs (e.g., playgroups or even neighbors who do likewise) and the need not to feel stupid by rejecting a freebie — women don’t really have the choice to stay at home.

UPDATE 11/6: Found it! An article in the Christian Science Monitor, though probably not the article I originally read on the topic, supports my memory of the story in Scandinavia. The key quote:

There is also an expectation that all mothers should go back to work since there is such an efficient and affordable system in place to take care of children. Here, there is more pressure to have a job to go back to after maternity leave, whereas in the US you would be criticized for prioritizing your career ahead of your child’s early formative years.

And here’s another article, one woman’s experiences as an American raising a family in Norway.

Because everyone works, there’s really no playground culture. When we moved here last March, my kids hadn’t gotten into Barnehage [daycare] yet, so I was alone with them all day from March until August. There was nothing to do. There are minimal kid activities, kids museums, playgroups or classes like in the U.S. because no one doesn’t work! Kids are all in Barnehage and parents are all working.

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