Child Care Policy Shouldn’t Forget Stay-at-Home Parents | Opinion

In the run-up to the 2024 election, support for parents is a hot topic. Both major presidential candidates have pledged to expand the child tax credit. The Kamala Harris campaign in particular appears to back paid child care and paid parental leave, reflecting a commitment to the broader “care economy.”
Parents are desperately looking for support, and regardless of who wins the presidential race, it appears some measure of relief is coming. Yet most national conversations about parental support leave out one critical group: stay-at-home moms and dads. This is a serious failure. Policymakers should know that the “Real Housewives and Househusbands” of America look little like Instagram influencers or so-called “tradwives.” Indeed, there should be a bipartisan consensus that as policymakers consider how to support America’s families, any solutions should include the moms and dads “on the home front” who provide full-time care to their kids.
Stay-at-home parents provide a significant percentage of America’s child care. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2019, 41 percent of our children five and under (not yet in kindergarten) were primarily cared for at home by a parent, rising to 58 percent for babies under one year old. Surveys show that the most popular choice for families with children is caring for young kids at home.
To date, not enough has been done to understand stay-at-home parents and their needs. To help address this lacuna in America’s child care policy, we at the think tank Capita (with support from the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund) commissioned a survey to investigate the challenges stay-at-home parents face.
Stay-at-home parents are incredibly diverse, with a wide variety of political affiliations and demographics. In fact, our survey of nearly 1,300 stay-at-home parents (defined as those providing primary child care to at least one child under age 12 during the day) revealed that they are as politically diverse as the nation itself: 39.6 percent identified as Republicans, 36.8 percent as Democrats, and 23.7 percent as Independents or “Other.” Thus, when politicians on both sides of the aisle think about stay-at-home parents, they should recognize that regardless of party affiliation, these parents are key constituents—and swing voters that can tip the balance in many close elections, including the current presidential race.
These parents also reflect America’s racial and socioeconomic diversity. In our poll, 54 percent of respondents identified as white, 21 percent as Hispanic, 10 percent as Asian, 10 percent as Black, and the remainder as “Other.” Seventy-one percent did not hold a college degree. Many were men: Over 20 percent of our respondents were stay-at-home dads. Other research has found that around one-third of stay-at-home parents are immigrants, and one-third live below the poverty line.
Despite their crucial role, our polling overwhelmingly showed that stay-at-home parents do not feel respected or supported. Fifty-seven percent disagreed with the statement “Stay-at-home parents are respected by society,” with only 12 percent strongly agreeing. These parents felt even more disrespected by policymakers, with 62 percent disagreeing that policymakers respect them.
Policymakers should also know that regardless of party affiliation, stay-at-home parents were almost universally eager for government support. The surveyed parents strongly supported policies that would help them balance the financial sacrifices they make. Eighty-six percent agreed that the government should do more to help families with a stay-at-home parent.
And indeed, these parents are often struggling financially: half of those surveyed said they could rarely or never meet an unexpected $400 expense without dipping into savings. They strongly support a wide range of policies from making health care (85 percent support) and housing (84 percent support) more affordable to securing a path to retirement (82 percent support). There was strong backing for direct cash payments to stay-at-home parents (81 percent support) and expanding community programs for them (77 percent support).
Ironically—and contrary to any artificial split between the need for an external child care system and the need to bolster families with a stay-at-home parent—we found most stay-at-home parents of young children need child care! This includes for routine errands like doctor visits, but also 27 percent of our surveyed stay-at-home parents were employed, either part- or full-time. Nearly 60 percent reported needing child care several times a month, if not more frequently, yet 40 percent said they “rarely” or “almost never” had access to the care they needed. Stay-at-home parents, too, are affected by the failure of America’s federal, state, and municipal governments to appropriately support a system of flexible, external child care options that are tailored to parents’ specific wants and needs (such as part-time care or care by extended family).
To be sure, both sides of the aisle have made some effort. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, recently introduced a bill that would increase funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant for low-income parents, but also offer moms and dads more choices in what form of child care to use—including in-home parental care vouchers to support married parents. On the other side of the political spectrum, progressives have supported Social Security “caregiver credits,” which would boost the safety net for parents who take time out of the workforce to care for their children. Still, not enough has been done to comprehensively explore stay-at-home parents’ needs or create solutions for this critical group.
Supporting stay-at-home parents offers a rare opportunity for pragmatic, bipartisan policymaking that is likely to be immensely popular with key voters. Indeed, the co-directors of this research project—Elliot Haspel and myself—respectively come from a left-of-center and a right-of-center perspective. In discussing politics, including child care, we have significant differences. But on this issue, we agree: any comprehensive American child care policy must consider stay-at-home mothers and fathers. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle would do well to take note.
Ivana Greco is a senior fellow at Capita, as well as a homemaker and homeschooling mother of four. She has written on stay-at-home parents for American Compass, The American Conservative, the Institute for Family Studies, and National Affairs.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.