Oh, boy, now I’m mad.
I worked when my children were little. They went to a local daycare while I helped to support us. Now my daughter and her husband are working and I take care of my granddaughter.
So when I read on CNN that in 1997 Mike Pence was quoted as saying that kids who go to daycare experience “stunted emotional growth,”I was pretty furious.
By 1997 most of us had come to realize that in order to raise children in the American economy, most families needed two working parents. We recognized that it was good for kids to socialize and it was good for Moms to get out of the house and away from the laundry. We understood that our kids were making friends and learning new skills at daycare.
Mike Pence wasn’t quite as evolved as the rest of us. In a letter to the Indianapolis Star in 1997, he claimed:
“For years, we have gotten the message from the mouthpieces of the popular culture that you can have it all, career, kids and a two-car garage. The numbers in this federally funded study argue that the converse is true. Sure, you can have it all, but your day-care kids get the short end of the emotional stick.”
Pence went on to say that Americans had fallen for the lie that “Mom doesn’t matter.”
Really.
I can’t say that I have never met a working mom who went to the office every day because she believed that she “didn’t matter.”
Pence tried to say that he wasn’t condemning mothers who made the choice to work, but those reassurances were weak at best.
When you tell us that our children and grandchildren are going to be “emotionally stunted,” it doesn’t much matter who you blame. It’s still a horrible and untrue thing to say.
Are you a working mom? Well, Donald Trump & Mike Pence have a problem with you. pic.twitter.com/etJj5vQeLA
— American Bridge (@American_Bridge) July 19, 2016
When CNN asked VP candidate Pence if he still held this view, his campaign remained silent.
Why am I not surprised?
It’s clear that Trump and Pence share some outdated views of motherhood and marriage.
Back in 1994, Trump told ABC News that his first wife, Ivana, had changed once she started to work. He said:
“A softness disappeared. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness, but during this period of time she became an executive, not a wife.”
In other words, Pence thinks that women who work are emotionally damaging their children. Trump thinks that women who work are emotionally damaging their men.
I wish someone would invent a working time machine so I could send the two of them back to 1950 where they belong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1v-V49MaM
Featured image via YouTube screengrab.
