Santorum book stirs debate on child care

Jul. 7--Katie Caruso, a Shaler resident and mother of a 5-year-old, works because she has to, not because she wants to. Carrie Leana, a Squirrel Hill mother of two, works because she wants to, not because she has to. Margie Severyn, another mother of two who lives in McCandless, doesn't work at all.

All three believe they're raising great children and wouldn't presume to judge other parents for their choices, which may be why none was comfortable yesterday with Sen. Rick Santorum's assertion in his new book that American families should try, whenever possible, to have one parent at home.

"I think it's all individual for each family," said Severyn, mother of a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old. "I have friends who work full time, while some don't, and some are in between. I don't want to judge them."

Santorum's new book, "It Takes A Family: Conservatism and the Common Good," lays out a vision of a traditional family in which one parent works while the other stays at home with the children while they are young, on the grounds that it's best for the kids.

Given that Santorum is running for re-election in 2006 and is eyeing a 2008 presidential bid, his comments -- and the book's title, an apparent dig at Hillary Clinton's own paean to the family, "It Takes A Village" -- have already become fodder for Democrats. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued a news release crowing that Santorum was "wildly out of step with America."

But his argument resonated with other organizations, including the conservative Independent Women's Forum.

"I think he brings up a number of important points," said Carrie Lukas, the IWF's director of policy. "We do need to look at some of the effects of a radical turn away from the family. Even the feminist movement itself has moderated its views a lot. There was a hostility to stay-at-home moms back in the Betty Friedan days, but now I think most women realize they get their greatest personal fulfillment from families and relationships."

That being said, Lukas objected somewhat to Santorum's implied criticism that many women, egged on by radical feminists, go back to work for "social affirmation."

"That may be going too far," she said. "Many women have an absolute right to pursue their career dreams and balance work and family responsibilities and society should be supportive of them. But in doing that, we've degraded the work and contribution of stay-at-home moms, and that has to change."

While many work-family experts say there's no proof that children in two-income families do any worse than children with one parent at home, the notion that parents should spend more time with their kids is an idea with some traction: U.S. Census statistics show that the number of stay-at-home moms increased 15 percent during the 1990s. Another recent survey by Harvard Business School found just 38 percent of its female graduates were in the workplace full time in their child-raising years.

Still, it's not clear that most Americans would buy into Santorum's single-breadwinner proposal, even if they could afford to.

A poll conducted earlier this year by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research Inc. found that 30 percent of working moms would choose to stay at home full-time if money were no object. At the other extreme, however, 10 percent would choose to work full-time, while a majority -- 59 percent -- would work part-time.

That may be because parents have figured out what many studies have already shown: Some exposure to the workplace is good for the psychological well-being of mothers, said Rosalyn Barnett, senior scientist and executive director of the Communities, Families and Work Program at Brandeis University, who has conducted numerous studies on family and workplace issues. One study of women working "really crummy jobs" at a seafood processing plant in Groton, Conn., found that most chose to work even if they didn't have to, "because of the social contact, the challenge and the structure of their days. There was a real mental health benefit here."

Not only that, she said, "maternal employment is irrelevant to child outcomes," noting that dozens of studies have found no negative effects on children in two-income families compared to those where only one parent works.

"No matter how you measure them, whether on attachment, school readiness or cognitive development, they don't find it," said Barnett. "It's not about maternal employment, it's about maternal sensitivity. There are plenty of stay-at-home mothers who are not sensitive to children, and plenty of working mothers who are. And the other way around. But in the end, it has nothing to do with the work itself."

Lest observers interpret his comments as an attempt to revisit the "Mommy Wars" of the 1990s, when stay-at-home moms and working moms faced off over whose child-rearing arrangements were better, Santorum took pains yesterday to say he wasn't aiming at women in particular.

"A parent should stay home. I didn't say whether it should be moms or dads. I have a lot of friends where the mom works and the dad stays home. I'm very flexible on that," he said.

"Clearly I'm an advocate for families and staying home with your kids, but I'm very specific about not saying which [parent] should and which shouldn't [stay home]. I'm saying women should have more choices not to be forced to work to have social affirmation.

"Someone needs to be home with the kids. ... Someone needs to be there but [we shouldn't] force one or the other [to do so]."

Nonetheless, some feminist observers took it that way.

"Who is he kidding?" asked Joan Williams, a professor at American University Law School and author of "Unbending Gender," a book about family and workplace conflicts. She noted one Santorum quote where he blames radical feminists for undermining the traditional family "and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness."

"If that isn't about mothers, I don't what is," said Williams, who added that Santorum also relates conversations with women who tell him it is more "socially affirming" to go back to work after having children.

"I don't see him quoting men saying they work because it's 'socially affirming," " she added. "What the senator is saying is that it's best to raise children with one woman who is economically vulnerable and socially isolated."

But Danielle Crittenden, a conservative commentator and author of "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Women," said she was worried that feminists were overstating Santorum's remarks.

"My alarm bells are going off," she said. "When you have a conservative politician like Sen. Santorum making those comments, you have feminist groups trying to do to him what they did to [Harvard President Lawrence] Summers -- take his words and try to hang him with them"

"[Santorum] is not saying anything different from what most American women themselves would say or express," she stressed. "Do we think children are better off with a parent at home? Of course we do. Women themselves say they should stay home."

Crittenden said she was skeptical of data showing no ill effects on children of two-income families.

"You can always pull up an individual case, but you should also question the responsibility of a father or mother who would go ahead and have children without thinking about the consequences. As a society, what are we saying? That it's more important for parents to spend more time at the office? Or that when they have children that they should be willing to make the sacrifices to raise those children?"

Most experts believe, however, that stay-at-home parents are clustered at the upper end of the economic spectrum and don't have to make much in the way of sacrifices at all.

Margie Severyn tried going back to work part time after her oldest son was born 16 years ago but quickly abandoned that plan once she and her husband realized they could afford to have her quit her job as a sales representative.

"I was not trusting enough to interview strangers to watch a baby of mine, and I wanted to be the one to do it," she said. "You have to look at your financials like we did and see if you can do it. Luckily enough, we could do it."

"What's so annoying is that we're having a debate about a rarefied group in society, in families where mom doesn't have to work. It's an elitist debate," said Carrie Leana, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business. For working parents who try to juggle family and career demands, "society and government legislators have said you're on your own. Staying at home is simply not a realistic option for most people."

Not so, countered Lukas. If anything, working parents get more sympathy from government, not single-income families.

"A lot of our infrastructure on public policy has been geared towards making life a little easier for working mothers but not for stay-at-home moms," she said, noting that legislators frequently propose increased tax credits for child care while ignoring "the economic struggles of the family where one parent opts out of the job market."

Leana is one of those parents who, perhaps, Santorum was talking about when he described, in less than positive terms, those who work for "social affirmation." She could have stayed home but chose to go back to work, in a workplace with some flexibility about her hours, since she was a tenured professor. Today, she has no regrets.

"Happy children have happy parents, and if those parents are not going to be happy staying at home, then I don't know that it is good for the children. I don't know if my children would have been better off if I stayed home 24/7 because I wouldn't have been happy. But that doesn't mean parents should be saying, 'Whatever's good for me is what matters." It's up to each person."

-----

To see more of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.post-gazette.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.