Daddy Daycare? U.S. Census Bureau Counts Fathers Among Childcare Providers
Do you consider your husband your partner in parenting? According to the U.S. Census Bureau you are wrong.
In their recently released report, “Who’s Minding the Kids?,” the mother is referred to throughout as the “designated parent” and any person or facility who cares for her children while she is away from the home or working is part of a “childcare arrangement,” including her husband, you know, the children’s father.
Alternatively, when the father works and the mother stays home with their children the Census Bureau does not consider this a “childcare arrangement.” Rather, this is just a woman doing what she is supposed to be doing, parenting children.
KJ Dell’Antonia of Motherlode spoke to Lynda Laughlin of the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch who had this to say: “Regardless of how much families have changed over the last 50 years women are still primarily responsible for work in the home. We try to look at child care as more of a form of work support.” According to Laughlin, mothers are providing care for their children around the clock anyway and so a man’s ability to work is not dependent upon the mother’s agreement to care for the children in his absence.
To be clear, if you are a working mother whose husband parents your children while you are at the office, according to the U.S. Census Bureau that’s not parenting, that’s a “childcare arrangement.” When asked if they collect data on the “work support” offered by mothers to their husbands Laughlin said the Bureau does not “report in that direction.”
Despite the fact that the percentage of men caring for their children while women work outside the home or attend school has risen from 26 in 2005 to 32 in 2010 and that women now make up approximately half of the workforce, it seems this government department is intent on collecting data in the spirit of the 1950s.
Funny, but when my husband and I decided to have children I don’t recall discussing which of us would be the “designated parent.” Now more than ever families require two incomes in order to make ends meet and in doing so “work support” (or parenting as most people refer to it) must be taken on by both parties, not just the mother.
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Wow, that is so wrong. When a parent raises the child, that’s not “childcare”, regardless of whether it’s the mom or the dad. My cousin is a SAHD, and I know both he and his wife would be insulted by the Census Bureau’s designation.
Ridiculous! I work full time and my husband is with our 6 month old daughter during the day while I am gone. There is no way he is a “childcare arrangement”, he is a father. Ugh. Spending the day with her Daddy is certainly very different than going to a Daycare facility. There’s nothing wrong with daycare but when counting the statistics I think they aren’t equivalent.
This is outrageous. I’m currently 6 mos pregnant, and my husband is in law school. Since I’m the only one earning an income, he is going to take classes at night and watch the baby during the day; then, we will trade off in the evening. This is a concept he is already struggling with – feeling like he isn’t a “provider” or that he’s less of a man because I’m the one working, even though he is still contributing to our family. Designations like these are extremely harmful both to women AND men.
What about when there’s two dads and no mom?
This makes me crazy…. however, in the state I live in, the child’s education is also only the mother’s responsibility. Therefore, if mothers work, and I as a single mother have to work, it is the mother’s choice to work out of the home and therefore, her father is not responsible to pay, or even assist in paying for child care. It is the mother’s sole responsibility. Child support does not factor in the cost of education, or extracurricular activities. It does count as an expense for the mother, but not one the father has to pay into. Now, if her father were, I don’t know, required or at least described, as a parent, maybe he would feel differently about her education and his role in it. He is a principal after all. I would welcome his perspective, and his participation in her education – regardless of finances.
I blame it all on the woman’s movement. It has stolen our worth as moms and forced us to be men with breasts and men to be below us. And it has devalued the role of the father. I say this as a full time working and single mom. I am expected to “do it all”. “What do I need a man for, right?” PLEASE!!! Men are needed, and we need to hold them to a higher level. When we value the “daddy” again, and get over the whole “we dont need no man” attitude..this will all change.