In 2016, when I had my son and became a mother for the first time, I was completely disillusioned about what raising a child entails. This is coming from a person who was the oldest of six sisters. I had to do a fair amount of work as a big sister, and I understood that much work was required of my mother. But for whatever reason — maybe I forgot — it didn’t occur to me that when I became a mother, I was going to be utterly swamped and often feel like I was drowning for the unforeseeable future.
At the time, I had a fun and sometimes lucrative career as a touring comedic musician. As I approached my 40s, my husband and I knew the clock was ticking, and we agreed that we wanted a family. But we didn’t entirely realize that it was going to mean one of us was going to have to give up our paid work for a while to do a different kind of work — the hours and hours of unpaid labor that come with parenting for most American caregivers.
As a household with two freelancers, this reality hit us really hard. We didn’t have much of a savings cushion at the time, or the benefits of paid maternal or paternal leave in our lines of work.
As an infant requires attention around the clock, I was busy caring for him from sunup to sundown and then during the hours in between. Sleep was a luxury I often couldn’t afford to experience. Most days, I ran on four to six hours of it. My husband found it challenging to support our growing family with a New York City cost of living on his salary alone. Even if I did opt to work, most of our money would have gone to child care, and I felt determined to care for my own child, even if it meant we might struggle a little, financially and otherwise.
Why doesn’t our government think that mothers deserve to be supported financially, when we contribute so greatly to our economy through raising our workforce one household at a time?
I did a little math, and I realized that if I was paid to care for my child at a rate of $20 per hour, which was what I paid a babysitter when I hired one, I’d be earning about $360 per day. I thought about all the mothers out there, just like me, up all night and all day, caring for a child that would grow up and join the workforce, building up America in their own way, and I thought, why don’t I deserve to be protected as a mother? Why doesn’t our government think that mothers deserve to be supported financially, when we contribute so greatly to our economy through raising our workforce one household at a time?
There are so many tax breaks and stipends for corporations, but what about for the people who literally raise and build the people who go on to create the corporations?
America’s Child Tax Credit, normally given back at tax return time, was instead given for the last six months of 2021 in the form of between $250 and $300 per child. However, that was a temporary adjustment.
I think about what it could do for our economy to offer a program that pays mothers even a fraction of what they might be paid to care for a child. Say the government paid mothers even $100 per day per child in weekly cash payments. Imagine how far $700 per week could go to help a family survive. It could cover groceries, or a random mini crisis, like a necessary car repair — the kind that always seems to come up right when money is skint. It could be used for school uniforms or supplies, new sneakers, medicine, laundry soap, socks, rent, small investments, tutoring, or special training for children’s interests. The money, simply put, would improve the lives of millions of people. The government improves roads, infrastructure, and our space program using our tax dollars; why not use the money the taxpayers contribute to the economy to directly improve the lives of us taxpayers?
It could be an opt-in program, which any taxpayer could be eligible for.
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are among countries that give money to families specifically to improve their lives, no matter how much money the family earns.
If the government would support families with a $700 per week credit, it would lift thousands of families out of poverty and turn around the lives of countless American adults and children in profound ways. It would raise the national morale and put us in the running to be a country that cares about its people. It would cover rent or car costs, allowing families to save, invest, grow wealth, and in general have a reasonable and fair cost of living.
This idea may seem somewhat radical, but we are already spending millions on welfare, which a program like this could eradicate, and a universal basic income has been floated since the 1960s. The general gist of it is that if each member of the labor force is paid a certain amount per month, they would at least have money to cover basics, and programs like SNAP and other supplemental welfare and the costs of running those programs would be reduced or even potentially wiped out altogether.
A $700 weekly family stipend could even lower gun rates in America and reduce shootings. Resources wouldn’t be something so many would feel the need to fight over. The credit might also boost education access and make college more attainable for families who felt like it was off the table. According to Pew Research Center data, 26% of college graduates are gun owners compared to 40% to 42% of people who have only a high school degree or only some college, respectively.
Like all changes, the more we talk about it, the more likely change might actually happen.
I feel so strongly about this concept, I started a petition about it on Change.org that over 800 people have signed to date.
A cost analysis would quite realistically show that it would save our government money, making it more realistic that it’d join other countries who value the happiness and healthiness of their population and implement this kind of program. Like all changes, the more we talk about it, the more likely change might actually happen.
There is a shift happening across the country and the globe. Compassion and intelligence are spreading. Remote careers are on the rise because we as a nation are realizing in a big way that we value time with family over workplace culture.
Americans shouldn’t have to choose between work and family. Maybe one day, we won’t.
