I am a mother of three. Over the years, our family has relied on daycare, preschool, nannies, babysitters, and even the childcare center at our local gym. Each was the right fit for a different season of life.
Our family’s experience isn’t unique. We are among the millions of American parents who understand, intimately, that there is no single childcare arrangement that’s right for every family.
It is also why there is no universal child care solution — and why our policies shouldn’t pretend there is.
For many families, affordability is a massive challenge. In many parts of the country, child care rivals housing as one of the largest monthly expenses families face. Making care more affordable should absolutely be a priority, particularly if we want to make it easier for couples to start families and have the number of children they hope to have. But affordability alone isn’t enough if families aren’t free to choose the type of care that best fits their needs.
That requires expanding the range of options available to families. Parents don’t all want the same thing because their families don’t all have the same needs. A nurse working overnight has different childcare needs than a teacher working a traditional school schedule. A child with special needs may thrive in one setting, while another flourishes somewhere entirely different. Public policy should expand those choices, not limit them.
Ultimately, addressing America’s childcare problems isn’t about getting more families into one model — it’s about helping families find and afford the model that’s right for them.
Unfortunately, many policymakers are focused on making universal, taxpayer-funded daycare the centerpiece of childcare policy. New Mexico recently became the first state to implement universal child care. The program makes child care cost-free for families who choose state-approved providers. That may sound appealing, but when public resources are directed toward a single model of care rather than giving families the flexibility to choose the arrangements that best fit their needs, the result is a system that favors one type of child care instead of respecting the diversity of American families. Public policy should be family-directed rather than provider-directed. Not only do families have different preferences, but nearly six in 10 parents say they would prefer informal care over a childcare center, even if the center were free and conveniently located. That means policymakers in New Mexico are pushing parents towards their less preferred option.
Policymakers often believe that formal, institutional childcare programs are better than alternatives like home-based care, but Head Start offers an important lesson. After decades in operation, the federal government’s own evaluation found no lasting academic benefits, and another study of state-run pre-K identified some negative emotional outcomes for Head Start participants. While intensive programs can help some very at-risk, low-income children, the evidence does not support expanding one government model as the solution for the general population.
The pandemic also demonstrated the risks of building a childcare system that depends too heavily on any single model or set of decision-makers. Families relying primarily on one centralized system had little control when programs closed, while those with other childcare arrangements — those not dependent on government funding — often had greater flexibility. In many communities, privately operated schools and preschools reopened before their public counterparts, giving families who had access to those options greater continuity.
A better approach is to build the strongest possible childcare ecosystem — one that includes daycare centers, home-based providers, faith-based programs, family caregivers, nannies, and every other arrangement that helps parents balance work and family life.
That also means removing unnecessary regulations that create barriers for small and home-based providers while preserving strong health and safety standards so more can enter the market, families have more options, and costs come down through greater competition. Oklahoma, for example, has excessively detailed toy requirements, with stipulations for the number of toys and the variety of their categories. It even specifies how many balls of various sizes are needed for each number of children. Many regulations, including those adopted with good intentions, have increased childcare costs and made it harder for providers to enter the market. The result is fewer providers, higher costs, and fewer choices for families.
The best childcare policy is the one that trusts parents to make decisions for their own children and gives them the freedom to choose from a wide range of affordable, high-quality options.
America doesn’t need a universal childcare solution. It needs a universal commitment to helping families choose the child care that’s right for them. Because there is no universal American family, there never will be a universal childcare solution. Our policies should reflect that reality.
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This is part of a series of op-eds based on Independent Women’s new report, “Flourishing Families: An Agenda to Help Families Thrive.” The report, found here, details ways to support families without direct government subsidies or radically distorting the tax code to redistribute resources to families.
Heather Madden is the vice president for policy initiatives at Independent Women.
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