Stop Blaming Conservatives For The Left’s Baby Bust
Conservatives are the ones still having babies.Conservatives are the ones still having babies.How A Feminist Info Op Convinced Moms To Leave Their Babies With Strangers Every Day
The information op on daycare, particularly federally funded daycare, is going through a strong cycle right now.The harmful entitlement behind 'affordable child care'
You see it constantly, some version of this claim: “The cost of child care is the single biggest obstacle to working women and families.”
From there come the familiar conclusions: “The state needs to subsidize child care.” “We need affordable day care for working moms.”
No, we don’t.
While claiming to elevate women, feminism has steadily lowered the status of motherhood and homemaking.
What we need is to recognize that it’s not normal — nor healthy — for children to be farmed out to strangers during their earliest years so that Mom can be “more than just a mom” with her career.
Yes, there are millions of families in which both parents must work to keep a roof over their heads. But there are millions more who don’t need two incomes. What gets called “need” is often just lifestyle expectation. What children actually need rarely enters the calculation.
Luxury expectations
Modern expectations in 2026 America look less like necessity and more like luxury — something closer to the “hands-off” child-rearing of aristocratic households than to ordinary family life.
People talk about “affordable day care” as if it were self-evidently necessary. It isn’t. It only sounds that way because repetition has made it seem normal.
Behind it sits an unspoken belief: “It is right and proper — even ideal — to leave our children with hired strangers for most of the day.”
Even 40 years ago, that would not have sounded normal. Most people still believed that all else being equal, children were best raised by their mothers (and with a father in the home). Day care might be necessary — but it was understood as a regrettable second-best option.
Today, even many conservatives won’t question it. To do so invites accusations of harming mothers or failing to support “hardworking single moms.”
But prolonged parental absence is not neutral. Children need their mothers, especially in their early years. We can cite studies, but we don’t need them to see what’s plainly in front of us.
Strikingly, the people who claim to “need” day care are often those who don’t. What they want is a standard of living that would have been considered extravagant a generation or two ago.
Maxed-out minimums
Take Democrat Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado. She has cultivated an image as a sainted working mother, bringing her small child onto the House floor while lamenting the lack of day care for “working moms.”
There’s just one problem: Congress has had full-time day care on Capitol Hill since 1987.
What’s happening here isn’t necessity — it’s performance. The question she avoids is whether her child’s needs might outweigh the demands of a camera-facing career.
And it’s not just politicians. Middle-class Americans have adopted a set of “minimum” expectations that earlier generations would have recognized as indulgent:
- Two cars (preferably full-size SUVs).
- Separate bedrooms for each child.
- A full slate of extracurriculars.
- No trade-offs between career ambition and motherhood.
- Children’s needs subordinated to adult preferences.
- Government support for single parenthood without fathers in the home.
Modern-day Tudors
In the feudal world, there was a distinction between a woman and a lady. A woman belonged to the working class; a lady to the aristocracy.
Women raised their children directly — feeding them, caring for them, folding them into the rhythms of daily life. Ladies did not.
In the Tudor royal court, for example, a noblewoman did not breastfeed. A wet nurse was hired in advance and took over immediately. Children were raised by nurses, governesses, and tutors, with parents appearing only intermittently.
The result was distance — emotional, developmental, and often moral.
For all our technological differences, the psychology isn’t so different today. The aristocratic habits of detachment have been democratized. What was once a marker of nobility is now treated as a baseline expectation.
There are better models to follow.
An old-fashioned approach
I have a friend, Tasha, a Catholic mother of nine. Her husband works full-time; she manages the home.
They don’t have two SUVs. They don’t have a large house. But they have what they need: a home, a van that fits everyone, good food, clean clothes, and a stable, loving family life.
How does she do it? The way families did for generations — before the late-20th-century promise that women could “have it all” and should expect it immediately.
She shops carefully. Buys in bulk. Reuses what she can. She hasn’t outfitted each child with personal screens to keep them isolated. Her household is structured around shared life, not individual consumption.
Degraded status
While claiming to elevate women, feminism has steadily lowered the status of motherhood and homemaking. For decades, we’ve heard that women are “more than just mothers,” that raising children prevents them from “being someone.”
Consider what that sounds like to a child.
The desire for status is natural — for men and women alike. Motherhood once carried that status. As it has been stripped away, many women seek it elsewhere.
But the substitute — career-first identity combined with outsourced child-rearing — is narcissistic, materialistic, and ultimately unsatisfying. It can be hard on families and hard on children.
It's also hard on mothers themselves. I’ve known many women who report that their contentment increased when they let go of "girlboss" career-woman expectations to concentrate on raising their children and making the home a nurturing place for their families.
Where now?
How do we fix this? I don’t know. Many Western families can’t get by on a single income. Men who want to be good providers can work hard and it’s still not enough. Some mothers need to work.
But we can acknowledge that economic reality without accepting how it has distorted us. We can stop demanding a government solution to what is fundamentally a problem of values. We need to reacquaint ourselves with what we really are as men and women and what we really need. I can’t give a road map for how to achieve this. But it has to start by hauling our aristocratic assumptions into the sunlight and seeing them for what they are.
Socialist Mamdani rolls out costly ‘free’ child care program to NYC workers — after crying financial crisis
New York City's democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, announced a free child care program for city workers after previously claiming the city faces a $12 billion budget deficit. His goal is to provide universal child care to all New York City residents, and the program is being implemented in phases.
Mamdani held a press conference on Monday to unveil NYC's first free, on-site child care pilot program, which will serve year-round approximately 40 children ages 6 weeks to 3 years.
'When we took office, we inherited a historic budget gap.'
The program will begin in the fall after the city completes its $10 million renovation at the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building to create a 4,000-square-foot child care facility. The building currently houses over 2,000 employees.
The mayor's office claims the program will put "upwards of $20,000 a year back in the pockets of working families."
"Change begins at home. As we deliver universal child care to New Yorkers, that work must include the public servants who keep this city running," Mamdani stated. "We are bringing year-round, no-cost child care right here to Lower Manhattan — not just saving families money, but giving them back hours of their time. No parent should have to spend hours commuting just to ensure their child is safe and cared for."
RELATED: Mamdani made big promises to cut the budget — here's the embarrassing result so far
Mamdani's campaign has estimated that the mayor's universal child care program will cost $6 billion annually.
Shortly after being inaugurated early this year, Mamdani claimed that New York City was "facing a serious fiscal crisis."
"There is a massive fiscal deficit in our city's budget to the tune of at least $12 billion," he stated in January.
Mamdani blamed former New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) for the city's alleged budget crisis. Adams has consistently denied leaving a deficit in the city's budget, insisting instead that he left over $8 billion in reserves.
Mamdani provided an update on the city's budget in February, stating, "When we took office, we inherited a historic budget gap. Our aggressive savings plan, daily incorporation of updated revenue and bonus estimates, and our deployment of in-year reserves in tandem with more than a billion dollars in additional aid from Governor [Kathy] Hochul, have lowered that deficit from an initial $12 billion to $5.4 billion. While considerably less, it is still a significant chasm."
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'The kind of nerds that will save the union': HHS' very own 'Bert and Ernie' read online roasts about their work
While the Minnesota fraud scandal and ensuing investigation are nothing to joke about, two Health and Human Services officials took a moment out of their busy schedules to share some "unsolicited commentary" about their job performance.
On Wednesday morning, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill and assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families Alex Adams stepped in front of the camera to respond to the humorous feedback they have received from those paying attention to their work.
"Protecting state and federal child care dollars and holding Governor Walz accountable, courtesy of Bert and Ernie," read a caption to the video.
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'This is what I want my government to be.'
The two officials took turns reading comments from viewers.
"Why does this feel like a late-night class-action lawsuit commercial? 'Do you or a loved one have mesothelioma? Call 1-800 ...'" O'Neill read.
"They look like injury-claim lawyers that have the nickname 'the Hammer' on a billboard in rural Indiana," Adams read out loud.
"These are the kind of nerds that will save the union," O'Neill said.
"I'm getting strong Bert and Ernie energy," Adams said.
"You're Bert," O'Neill joked.
A lengthier comment said, "These dorks are amazing. They found policies that enable the massive fraud, they're stopping it, and they got in front of a camera to explain it to us. This is what I want my government to be."
In a final comment, Adams read, "I love these guys. The vibe feels like 'behind the camera' people being told they need to wear a suit tomorrow."
The fraud investigation was helped by the outpouring of information into HHS' tip line at childcare.gov, where they said that they had quickly received more than 500 tips for their investigation.
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Tim Walz's nightmare continues as HHS shuts off $185M to Minnesota amid allegedly 'fake' Somali day-care centers
Minnesota appears to be a mecca for fraudsters, particularly from the crime-ridden African nation of Somalia.
Private citizens and the Trump administration have taken steps in recent weeks to neutralize and expose the worst cases of graft in Democratic Gov. Tim Walz's back yard — including the fraud committed by members of the Somali community in relation to coronavirus relief funding and the student aid fraud plaguing the Gopher State's publicly funded schools.
YouTuber Nick Shirley, 23, has played an outsized role in this anti-fraud campaign. His Christmas week videos alleging massive fraud in taxpayer-subsidized, Somali-run day care facilities prompted the Department of Health and Human Services to announce that it was derailing the gravy train.
'Any dollar stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children.'
"We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota," HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
In a corresponding video, O'Neill noted that "intrepid journalists have made shocking and credible allegations of extensive fraud in Minnesota's child care programs. We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake day cares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade."
Alex Adams, assistant secretary of the HHS' Administration for Children and Families, indicated that his office provides Minnesota with $185 million in childcare funds annually.
"That money should be helping 19,000 American children, including toddlers and infants," said Adams. "Any dollar stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children."
RELATED: Patel: Convicted Somali fraudsters face loss of citizenship as DHS probes Minnesota
Shirley visited a number of ostensible childcare facilities in Minnesota that each receive millions of dollars in government backing only to find them apparently devoid of children.
In one instance, Shirley visited Mako Childcare — whose owner is listed as Ayan Salah — and the Mini Childcare Center, which are housed in the same facility and appear to be one and the same. According to Shirley's documentary, the two outfits are together licensed for 120 children and rake in roughly $3 million each year.
Shirley highlighted how the windows at the location were all blacked out, there was no outside play area, and there was no evidence of any children on or around the site. Despite signage indicating that the facility is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., the door was locked and no one responded to the doorbell.
After visiting a number of other locations with covered windows and not a single child in sight — while allegedly being tailed by Somali malcontents — Shirley paid a visit to the Quality Learing [sic] Center.
As Shirley knocked on the blacked-out door of the potentially fraudulent day care with the misspelled name, a woman warned those inside, "Don't open up!"
According to the documentary, the apparently childless, playground-free Quality Learing Center is licensed for 99 children and has received around $4 million over the past two years.
Vice President JD Vance said in response to Shirley's reporting, "This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes."
'This jaw-dropping reporting is an indictment of both the national news media and feckless, dangerous office holders in Minnesota.'
In response to Shirley's videos, O'Neill indicated that all Administration for Children and Families payments moving forward will "require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state."
O'Neill noted further that he and Alex Adams have identified the individuals referenced in Shirley's report and have demanded Gov. Walz undertake a "comprehensive audit of these centers," pulling information on attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections.
In addition to pausing funding to Minnesota, requiring more in the way of information from applicants nationwide, and demanding an investigation, O'Neill noted that the HHS has launched a fraud-reporting hotline and email address.
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Vance said of the actions taken by the HHS, "Turning off payments and forcing verification before taxpayer money flows out the door is one of the most important steps we can take to end the fraud in Minnesota. But there will be many more to come."
Gov. Walz suggested the HHS' firm response to credible allegations of widespread childcare fraud on his watch was somehow a nefarious plot on the part of President Donald Trump.
"This is Trump's long game," said the failed Democratic vice presidential candidate whose trouble telling the truth dogged him on the campaign trail last year. "We've spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It's a serious issue — but this has been his plan all along. He's politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans."
Walz was thoroughly mocked and criticized online over his desperate attempt to shift blame onto Trump.
Zerohedge, for instance, quipped, "Brilliant execution by Trump's sleeper Somali cell."
Minnesota state Rep. Harry Niska (R) wrote, "Take some accountability. Your failure is no one’s fault but your own. Minnesota deserves better than this embarrassment."
Shirley's documentary not only prompted action by the HHS but by others in the federal government.
"This jaw-dropping reporting is an indictment of both the national news media and feckless, dangerous office holders in Minnesota like Tim Walz, who have allowed these massive fraud schemes to occur for years. NO MORE," tweeted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Johnson added that the House Oversight Committee "has expanded its investigation into these schemes. Republicans have demanded data from Gov. Walz, AG [Keith] Ellison, the Treasury Department, and the Justice Department, and have requested interviews with several key officials in Minnesota who have allowed, or participated in this fraud."
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem indicated that Homeland Security Investigations was also looking into the matter, sharing a video of HSI officers visiting day care operations.
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Director Kash Patel said that the FBI was aware of the reports in the Gopher State and that "fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide."
Patel noted further that the fraud confirmed in the state to date "is just the tip of a very large iceberg," adding that many of those responsible "are also being referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible."
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How Respecting Women’s Biology Fosters A Culture of Life
Research shows that abortifacients, not lack of money, are the top driver of the world’s population bomb.Motherhood Only Feels Like A ‘Penalty’ When Women Succumb To Feminism
Raising children didn’t become controversial until feminism convinced women that the best life mimicked men and prioritized work over family.Today's top stories
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