Guest Perspective
Parenting has an incredible way of turning choices into teams. Stay home or go back to work. Daycare or family care. Career or caregiving. As though families couldn't possibly need different things at different times, or sometimes several things at once.
That's why we're especially glad to welcome Dr. Nicole Kumi, founder and CEO of The Whole Mom, to Macaroni KID. Nicole works in maternal mental health and postpartum education, helping families move beyond simply being told to "ask for help" and toward intentionally building systems of support. Her perspective here is an important one: valuing caregiving at home and making childcare accessible aren't competing goals.
Caregiving Has Value. So Does Having Access to Childcare.
By Dr. Nicole Kumi, PhD, PMH-C
Founder | CEO, The Whole Mom
There is a conversation happening across the country right now about something parents have known for generations: caregiving has value. Recent discussions about providing financial support to parents who stay home to care for their children have brought renewed attention to the enormous amount of unpaid labor happening inside American homes every day.
That conversation is long overdue, but recognizing the value of parents who provide care at home cannot come at the expense of families who need affordable, accessible childcare.
This should not be an either/or conversation.
A Note From Rachael
This is where Nicole had me. We have somehow managed to turn nearly every parenting decision into opposing teams, complete with jerseys nobody asked for. Supporting a parent who wants to stay home doesn't require making childcare less accessible. Supporting a parent who needs or wants childcare doesn't diminish the enormous value of caregiving at home. Families aren't teams. They're families, and their needs change.
Care Has Always Been Work
Feeding children. Scheduling appointments. Packing lunches. Managing school calendars. Waking up in the middle of the night. Coordinating transportation. Remembering when diapers, formula or new shoes need to be purchased.
This is work.
Much of it is unpaid and invisible. And historically, much of it has fallen to mothers.
According to the Federal Reserve's 2025 survey of household economic well-being, 37% of mothers living with children under age 13 were not working for pay, compared with 18% of fathers. Among mothers who weren't working, 41% said childcare contributed to that decision.
Even among mothers who remain in the workforce, childcare affects how they work. Sixteen percent of mothers of children under 13 worked part time, and 44% of those parents said childcare contributed to their working part time rather than full time.
A parent who steps away from paid employment to care for a child is still contributing meaningful labor to their family and society. That labor deserves recognition, but recognizing it shouldn't require us to devalue another form of care.
Childcare Is Caregiving, Too
For millions of families, staying home full time simply isn't an option, or isn't the option they want. Those parents need childcare, and childcare has become an enormous expense.
In the Federal Reserve's 2025 survey, parents who paid for childcare reported a median cost of $250 per week. For many families, that means spending well over $1,000 a month simply to have someone care for their children while they work.
Yet childcare can be incredibly expensive for parents while the people providing that care remain relatively low-paid. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that childcare workers earned a median of $16.82 an hour in 2025.
Families can struggle to afford childcare while childcare professionals simultaneously struggle to earn sustainable wages.
That tells us something important: the system itself needs attention.
Parents Shouldn't Have to Compete With One Another
Whenever we talk about supporting families, we have to be careful about creating false choices.
Stay-at-home parent or working parent. Family caregiver or childcare center. A mother who wants to return to work or a mother who wants more time at home.
These families are not on opposing teams.
A mother who wants to stay home with her baby deserves support. A mother who wants or needs to return to work deserves support. A family relying on grandparents deserves support. A family relying on a childcare center deserves support, and families may move between these arrangements throughout their children's lives.
Family life changes. Our systems should have enough flexibility to change with it.
This Is Bigger Than Childcare
My work focuses primarily on mothers during the postpartum period, and I see this issue as part of a much larger conversation about how we care for families.
We often tell new mothers to "ask for help," but help is not a system. Neither is telling a mother, "Let me know if you need anything."
From Rachael at Macaroni KID
"Help is not a system." That's the sentence I'm underlining. There is a huge difference between being surrounded by people who would absolutely help if you asked and having a support system where someone already knows they're handling Tuesday pickup, bringing dinner or taking the baby while you sleep. A village isn't just people who care about you. It's people actually carrying pieces of the load.
Families need actual infrastructure around them. That might mean a partner taking responsibility for meals. A grandparent handling school pickup. A friend bringing groceries. A postpartum professional providing specialized care. A childcare provider creating a safe place for a baby while a parent returns to work.
I often encourage families to think about their "village" this way: not simply as a list of people who love them, but as people with defined roles who can help carry the work, because having people around you isn't necessarily the same thing as being supported by them.
The same principle applies on a larger scale. We cannot simply tell American families that we value caregiving. Our policies, workplaces, communities and support systems have to demonstrate that value.
What Would Supporting Families Actually Look Like?
We can begin by acknowledging something that shouldn't be controversial: there are many legitimate ways to care for a family.
Supporting one shouldn't require taking resources away from another.
Financial recognition for unpaid caregiving can be valuable. So can investments that make childcare more affordable, paid family leave, workplace flexibility, strong wages for childcare professionals and maternal mental health resources.
These ideas don't have to compete.
The goal shouldn't be convincing parents to stay home or pushing them back into the workforce. It should be creating conditions in which families have meaningful choices.
When we recognize caregiving as essential work, the question changes. Instead of asking, "Which parents deserve help?" We can begin asking a much better question:
What would it look like to build a society in which every family has access to the care they need?
That is a conversation worth having, and parents shouldn't have to choose sides to have it.
One Last Thought From Rachael
This is the part I hope we carry into conversations about families. The goal doesn't have to be finding the one "right" way to arrange work, childcare and caregiving. The goal can be making sure families have enough real options that they can choose what works for their family, and enough support that the person doing the caregiving is cared for, too.
Sources & Further Reading
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (2026). Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026). Childcare Workers: Occupational Outlook Handbook. U.S. Department of Labor.
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