Top Republican Party politicians have made the desire to increase birthrates and a return to traditional family structures, in which women are the homemakers, a key part of their political platform. At the same time, both the Trump administration and others in the Republican Party have sought to cut key federal childcare provisions.
Baby bonuses
A notable crusader against declining birthrates is Vice President JD Vance, saying quite plainly at the anti-abortion rally “March for Life” in January, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
To this end, the Trump administration has considered USD 5,000 “baby bonuses” to be given to mothers after delivery of a child. Some women in the US scoff at such a proposal, such as 24-year-old Texan Savannah Downing, who told The Guardian that “Five thousand dollars doesn’t even begin to even cover childcare for one month. It just seems really ridiculous.”
Childcare costs in the US have indeed soared to between USD 6,552 to USD 15,600 annually for one child, according to 2022 data from the US Department of Labor, which also finds that US families are spending on average up to 16% of their median annual income on childcare.
Attacks on public child care programs
While the White House floats the possibility of “baby bonuses”, Trump’s administration has also attacked Head Start, the oldest and largest public early childhood education program, which has served more than 40 million children since its inception in 1965. Head Start operates in all 50 states and services parents and children who are homeless or live in poverty. As part of cost-cutting efforts by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), scores of federal employees who administer Head Start have been put on leave.
The White House has proposed eliminating funding for Head Start altogether, claiming in a draft budget document from April that eliminating the program is consistent with Trump’s “goals of returning control of education to the states and increasing parental control.” These budget cuts were narrowly averted following efforts by Head Start staff, parents, and alumni. According to the National Head Start Association, the program’s supporters reacted to the Trump administration’s threats to cut funding by sending hundreds of thousands of letters, adding over 50,000 signatures to petitions, and attending rallies throughout the country.
When Florida mother-of-two Sarah Brummet had her first child during her senior year of high school, finding herself stuck between abuse both at her home and from the father of her child, Head Start was the program she turned to. “As a young mother, I was reliant on Head Start to access childcare for my daughter, and it was that program that actually empowered me to leave a domestic violence situation,” Brummet told Peoples Dispatch.
Conservatives encourage stay-at-home parenting
Almost in tandem with baby bonuses and cuts to public childcare, right-wing politicians have also promoted policies that encourage parents to stay at home. Indiana Senator Jim Banks introduced the Respect Parents’ Childcare Choices Act in February, which would effectively pay stay-at-home parents for child care labor. “Big government never works,” Banks stated. “The Respect Parents’ Childcare Choices Act puts families first and gives parents the freedom to choose what works best for them.”
Parents like Brummet worry that a policy agenda that both dismantles public childcare and funnels money into private homes could put women in precarious situations. Taking away programs that might enable mothers to return to work if they need to is an “enormous red flag for the position of women in our society, and for the safety of women and children in their families.”
Conservatives in the US are broadly pushing back against what has been labeled as a “work-ist” approach to childcare policy, an approach which “makes it easier to do more work,” Brad Wilcox, co-founder of the Institute for Family Studies whose stated mission is to “strengthen marriage and family life,” told The New York Times. “We are more about policies that make it easier for parents to invest in time with kids, and not privileging a model where both parents are working outside of the home.”
