As We Face a Child Care Cliff, the Mommy Wars Are the Last Thing We Need

On social media, the mommy wars rage on. But these overly simplistic takes on stay-at-home vs. working motherhood are more problematic than ever.

Fact checked by Sarah Scott

I recently came across a video clip from a podcast account about the “privilege” of stay-at-home motherhood. “The majority of mothers around the globe have a job and they have to raise their kids—like, a real job,” one of the hosts says in the clip. “So the ones that only do the mothering, that say that’s their full-time job, that is privilege. That is a gift. That is an absolute luxury…for people that are working a couple of jobs, they’re looking at that woman going ‘b*tch, you don’t know what having a full-time job is.”

Yikes. This take isn’t the bold reality check these women seem to think it is. Actually, it, like so many other videos on the Internet, is completely lacking in critical nuance. I had a lot of thoughts upon seeing this clip, but the most pressing one was this: I wish these women had been able to read the room.

The Impact of the Child Care Cliff

We’re bracing ourselves for the impact of a child care cliff. For those of you who don't know what that is, here's a quick refresher. On September 30, 2023, federal funding that went towards stabilizing child care during and after the pandemic expired, and more than 3 million children are projected to lose child care, according to The Century Foundation.

In light of the looming child care cliff, commentary like this is even more problematic than ever. Choosing to stay home and care for your kids is a privilege—but so is choosing to work outside the home after having kids, which requires securing childcare. The privilege is in the choice. Now, as many families will be forced to reconfigure their plans, with moms bearing most of the brunt of this child care cliff, this messaging is more harmful than ever.

Being forced to quit, pause, or shift your career because you have no one to watch your child while you work—or being a mom who works as a child care provider and will lose your job to the child care cliff—is hardly a marker of privilege.

Commenters are pushing back on the ideas shared in this particular video clip. “This is absolutely GARBAGE. Some women are stuck being [a] stay-at-home parent because the cost of childcare is outrageous. Some women would love to work and can’t because their paychecks would barely cover daycare. This is not a privilege to some but rather the harsh reality that women are the default parent and expected to put their lives on pause,” one commenter writes.

Another adds: “Ohhhh so unnecessary to [pit] women against each other over and over again. The real problem is the lack of actual support from men and the lack of access to affordable childcare aka the real problem is The Patriarchy. Let’s band together and change that ol’ system. Women shaming women is not the vibe.”

A round of applause for this commenter, please.

The Mommy Wars and the Child Care Cliff

The mommy wars (which is a silly condescending name for a silly, condescending thing) are obviously nothing new. But the fact that they’re still continuing in light of all we’ve learned about the value of invisible, unpaid labor, about all the nuances of how privilege can affect parenthood, about the broken system mothers are navigating in the United States? It’s staggering.

The so-called war between stay-at-home moms and working mothers essentially rests on arguing about who has it harder, but why are we so caught up in that? Maybe it’s because we’ve been so socially conditioned to believe that in order to do motherhood—or if we’re being honest, even womanhood—the right way is to struggle through it.

Our glorification of struggle in motherhood is tied up in so much, like mommy martyr culture and, of course (all together now) the patriarchy. Yet by arguing about who has it harder, by perpetuating these ridiculous tropes, we’re wasting energy that would be much better spent working to change the system for all families. To be totally unaware of how problematic these mommy wars are, especially in light of a child care crisis? That’s the real indicator of unchecked privilege.

The line between working and stay-at-home moms has never been as blurry as it is now, yet we’re still holding onto this binary, overly simplistic way of thinking. Self-employed parents, freelancers, stay-at-home moms who profit off their content on social media, sell handmade items on Etsy, or build businesses during nap time, those of us who take career pauses—we’re building out this thriving, growing gray area. In doing so, we’re showcasing the range of experiences mothers have that go so far beyond the limiting dichotomy that fuels this pointless war.

The reality is, there are so many factors that influence how “hard” our roles are. How much money we have, whether we have partners, how involved those partners are, access to maternal and mental health resources, proximity to helpful family, the presence of a village, the health of our children, the number of kids we have, the phase of parenting we’re in, our ability to outsource domestic labor—those are just some of the things that affect how difficult our experiences with motherhood are.

A stay-at-home mom with a medically vulnerable child and a military spouse, who lives far from their partner, family, and friends with no childcare or disposable income doesn’t live the same experience as a stay-at-home mom who can afford some type of childcare or domestic help and has an involved partner.

Similarly, a single mom who works to make ends meet doesn't have the same experience as an affluent corporate mom with a similarly wealthy partner (and the ability to pay for a nanny, house cleaner, meal delivery subscription, laundry service, and more). And to be clear: The people who have the ability to do these things aren’t the problem—the problem is the climate that makes this “privileged” scenario so rare. It’s also this persistent idea that harder is a badge of honor in motherhood.

For the past few years, we’ve had to take a good, hard look at how broken our childcare system is and how essential domestic labor is (which disproportionately falls on mothers). We saw that moms are almost always the ones affected by childcare closures, not just because of gendered expectations, but also because of a wage gap. In light of all that, how are we still indulging in these pointless, reductive mommy wars instead of banding together to place that blame on a system that routinely fails mothers and children?

Now, as working mothers will have no choice but to become stay-at-home mothers, shaming them even further, dismissing the value of the work they’ll be doing, fueling the narrative that they have “no idea” what a job is (despite the fact that many stay-at-home moms today have had full careers outside the home). That’s the opposite of what they need. It’s inaccurate, myopic, and destructive…and we need to do better.

Related: Universal Child Care Could Boost Women's Income by Billions, According to New Research

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