The MoveOn.org link, too, was valuable, in outlining several the “Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP’s War on Women,” although I am sure they (the Republicans) don’t see it as such and I honestly really don’t understand the Republican motive behind all this. Do they think they can shame people into what they feel is appropriate behavior? Do they think women go out looking to land in a spot where they need an abortion? Most of the things on the 10-point list are obvious, no-brainers that any progressive can get behind opposing.
But, I would feel a little disingenuous if I did not say something about what what I really think of point 6 on MoveOn’s list:
6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids’ preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working. {emphasis theirs}
Let me just first say that at the end of the day, I still support what MoveOn is driving at—that is, not pulling funding from low-income kids’ preschool programs. I get that. They’re low income. Further, I think that by simply raising taxes on the rich (I, too, though not “rich” would be willing to pay more) and then people just being a little more efficient and earnest in how they manage these funds, many of the budget problems would likely be solved, or at least it would help.
My problem, though, is the way MoveOn phrases it, as though it is a preposterously wrong idea that “Women should really be home with the kids, not out working”—wrong on the same level of Republicans allowing women to die rather than allow them an abortion, or on the level of changing the legal definition of rape, or on the level of making it legal to kill abortion providers.
I just don’t think the idea that mothers of small children should be home with their kids is really so wrong. It is idealistic, to be sure, in today’s world, but, it is not wrong. In fact, I think it is very much right. I think more people who can actually afford it should do this. I’m not saying women should not work, ever, I’m just saying that I really do believe it is better, most especially for infants, for them to be at home with their mothers and to slowly ramp the children up for full days at school over the 5-6 year early childhood stage. I do not think it is ideal for infants to be in day care centers or for toddlers or preschoolers to attend all day programs. I’ll provide a link here to some more thoughts on this including scholarly citations on the subject, though, as is the case with “proving” breastfeeding is the right thing to do, I do dare say that it seems to me to be common sense that small children, new to the world, need not be exposed to the fray of a group dynamic under the care of paid workers for extended periods of time. But, I digress.
To paraphrase a great thinker (cough cough…not really…but the sentiment works in what I am getting at there) we have to deal with the world we live in NOW not the world we want, or how we hope the world will someday be. Sure, I want a world where all mothers can afford to stay home with their infants, then send them to preschool for a few hours a week at age 3 or so, then enroll them in Kindergarten and be there at 3 pm to ask how their day was. However, I am a realist and I understand that that is NOT the world we live in right now. Therefore, we need to try and help out the best we can, which might mean, yes, funding full day preschools for low income kids. It also might mean subsidizing low income mothers staying home with their infants or preschoolers, or maybe attending classes part time, if they hit a set of targets ensuring they’re doing right by the kids and the system and not squandering the benefit.
I also understand that even among those who have a little money, with good jobs, mothers often choose to work because of a need for the healthcare benefits associated with their jobs. Another common scenario are the professionals who have to both work because their student loan payments are so high. Fixing both of these issues by bringing America more in line with other industrialized countries that do not tie healthcare to employment and that have much more reasonable systems of higher education would definitely allow more parents to do better by their young children.
I guess I am just dismayed that the progressives, with whom I share many values, think that what I believe to be ideal for children is wrong or somehow laughable or outrageous. But, the alternative—not supporting Planned Parenthood or MoveOn and allowing the attacks on women and children the Republicans are trying to pull—isn’t really an option for me either.
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