That's Not a Choice We Want Americans to Make

This has been a tough week for Stay at Home Moms. On a good week we often get a bad rap for this choice we have made to stay home with our kids and be their primary care giver. But this week the term Stay at Home Mom has been a lightning rod for the political efforts to expand public preschool.

Recently, President Obama spoke about Stay at Home Moms in a speech he gave promoting the expansion of public preschools. While I support any expansion of educational opportunities for our kids the comments made by the President did not seem to help move forward the cause of Stay at Home Moms and the choice we make to stay at home OR the case for early public preschool opportunities.

Whether you are a Stay at Home Mom or a working mom there is still the problem of women earning less in the workforce than men.  This is not the fault of the Stay at Home Mom for making the choice to stay home and raise their own kids. This is a case of equal pay for equal work. The solution to equal pay for equal work is not to make more of a nanny state for our kids to be taken care of by some other person while we keep women in the workforce.

This kind of logic and the rhetoric that go with it are very discouraging for all Stay at Home Moms. It discounts our value as moms. Instead of saying the solution to the disparity in pay is to keep women in a traditional work cubicle there are a number of ways we could promote stronger families

• we could be encouraging businesses to being family friendly and giving these businesses incentives to ensure that they are providing equal pay for equal work
• we could provide better online training opportunities for moms who want to continue their education while staying at home with their kids so that if they did want to return to the workforce they would not only have up to date skills but some third party verification that they do
• we could help businesses by reducing payroll taxes so that each worker was able to take home more money which would help out every family everywhere
• Along with teaching our kids Math, Reading, History, Social Studies, and Science in school we should include a program to teach them financial understanding. This could start as young as kindergarten when they learn to count by understanding what one penny plus one penny means. This could continue on through elementary school and by the time they reach middle school they should be balancing a checkbook. In high school they should understand compound interest and the dangers of a high interest credit card and deferring student loans. Many schools offer these kinds of classes but typically only during a part of the class and then only to those kids who opt in for that particular class. These classes should be required for every single student. This would help people make better financial decisions for themselves and their families.

TWO PROBLEMS

There are two arguments that are often made as reasons that we need to get kids into daycare:

• "The only reason women stay home to take care of their own kids is because of the cost of childcare."
  
  While it is true that childcare is expensive and this is often a tipping point for families who are considering whether mom should go back to work or stay at home with the kids but if money were not a consideration what choice would they be making. We don't know. Perhaps those same moms would opt to stay home with their kids even if they could afford day care.
• "Statistically more Stay at home moms would rather be working outside of the house."
  
  There are no promotions for Stay at Home Moms. In fact, once our kids graduate from high school it feels more like a demotion "What am I now that there are no kids at home anymore?"
  We don't get Christmas bonuses. In fact we often give everything we have to make sure our kids have a fantastic holiday.
  Our work attire is often yoga pants and a cotton t-shirt (everything has to be washable). There is nothing really glamorous about our work wardrobe.
  So yes, there are days when getting out of the house in grown-up clothes and hearing from someone other than your kids that you are doing a great job sounds very appealing.
  
  All of that being said, at the end of the day, seeing your child's sleepy head lying peacefully on their little pillow is absolutely the best reward ever.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? 

Fighting for early childhood learning opportunities is a good thing.  Saying that "being a Stay at Home Mom because there is no public preschool is a choice no American should have to make" is just not cool.  We can fight for better education opportunities and equal pay for women without bringing Stay at Home Moms down.

How would you solve this? Join our conversation on the STAYATHOMEMOMCOMMUNITY on FACEBOOK