On the Child Care Controversy

The Right Hand does not always appreciate the role of the left hand.

At the risk of creating or renewing an old controversy, we need to come together as one society. In no arena is this more poignant than in the life of just one small child.

A recent episode in the media involves a Democratic consultant named Hilary Rosen who made a comment on a stay-at-home presidential candidate’s wife, Ann Romney, as having “never worked a day in her life.” In fairness to Ann Romney her child rearing success with her children is not part of the controversy, at least not yet nor how she managed the success (her book is due out if timely done assuming it will and should be written).

It is generally agreed by all including the Obama White House that the Rosen comment was unfair and without factual basis. Her comment provided more grist for the mill on single parents as a problem in our society however, and not just the inequities of the wealthy affording one parent’s staying at home for the sake of child rearing, as opposed to third party child care for small children while both parents work outside the home on their careers (which is the ideal value in the discourse of the equality of the sexes at least as it is termed nowadays and the related topic of tax advantage for married couples with children).

I for one wholly applaud the wealthy for a primary allocation of family assets for the child by providing in home parenting (by the parent mother or father). The wealthy of course can afford third party child care to support the stay at home parent as well. So in no arena of American society is the uneveness between the rich and poor more exaggerated and responsible in large measure for the great inequities that result when a child reaches the school house door. But I still applaud the wealthy who put the family first.

As an aside but one very germain to my point here: let’s not forget though that inequities in the workplace in particular dealing with income and career advancement for women are due in large measure to the employee or professional who not only has to succeed at work but in role as single parent at home with the worry and expense of affordable day care while she is at work and later for after school care before she should reach the door of her home.

I am very grateful for the mother of my two daughters and her mothering and homemaking skill set. She was always on and present in our married life to see to the children and to the next task. She had to stretch our income from my teaching job a very long way and then with even less when I worked construction in the summers.

As our children got older, she worked outside the home and is a high performer in work world too. We have not been married now since 1988, but our daughters have turned out extremely well. I know sacrifices are made by parents but I never appreciated it quite so much until I'd lived through it myself.

Our marriages do not always survive but that doesn't mean the joy and compassion of being parents can not always be held in common. I agree that the family is under attack in society, and the attack is often fueled by selfishness. But the family is the unit where we belong and selfishness is self defeating there, especially when the loved ones deserve better and we have to be just our very best selves.

The real threat to the family is not single parent families, it’s the economic duress which often accompanies that family unit. Plus, so many who have children are too slow on the uptake of coming through for an infant and of providing the safe haven which ideally is always afforded every child.

I for one believe that every child deserves a support system to augment whatever effective parenting the child should have. Nowadays, one child’s support system can look vastly different from another child’s support system even though they might live in the very same community and neighborhood. It has never been more true that “it takes a village to raise a child.”

Note bene. The use by Hilary Clinton of the phrase as a title for her book of 1996 popularized this expression, but she I’m sure does not take credit for its originality (indeed she failed at the time to credit her partnership with ghostwriter Barbara Feinman (aka Barbara Feinman Todd after her marriage)). More importantly, related wisdom says that “a single hand cannot carry a baby” and “a single hand cannot bring up a child” which also make the point but these formulations lack the centrality of focus for a village, a child’s well being. See wikipedia article noted below with more details than noted above:

See (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village). “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us is a book published in 1996 by First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton. In it, Clinton presents her vision for the children of America. She focuses on the impact individuals and groups outside the family have, for better or worse, on a child's well-being, and advocates a society which meets all of a child's needs.”