You know, it's so sad to see this being polarized. I see mothers everywhere struggling to do the best thing they can for their children.
When I was a stay-at-home mom, I had three children relatively close together. I didn't send my children to early learning and child care because I was a bad mom. I stayed at home with them. I was a good mother. I did many things with them. But I also recognized that there were programs that could offer things that I couldn't, and I made those choices because of my circumstances.
Families who choose not to send their children to any early learning and child care programs--all power to them. That's wonderful. But the reality, and what the research says, is that even for stay-at-home parents, they make that choice. More than 90% of children attend some kind of early learning and child care program, regardless of what their parents are doing.
So it's not just about good mothers and bad mothers; it's about families being able to make choices.