President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a plan to offer a $9,000 benefit to families with one parent staying home to raise their children. Putting aside the economic pros or cons of this proposal, the reaction to it from opponents on the right and the left says a lot about how society views the homemaker.

The first argument against this reported plan claims that it would merely pay moms to “sit at home and babysit.” In some ways, this claim is perhaps the easiest to refute merely for its laughability. Very little sitting actually occurs when raising children who have discovered how to move themselves from room to room. And calling the work of motherhood “babysitting”? It is shocking how the caring and raising of children is now so removed from the normal functioning of the home that it is described via its commercial equivalent.

The second category of those incensed about this proposal are angry that parents who don’t “work” in the economic sense are treated as a higher category of parent than those who do. Every parent raises their children, these critics shout, so why are those who do so by staying home subsidized?

A benefit for a parent who stays home is offensive to these people because it finally recognizes raising children as a legitimate category of work. Until this recognition, working parents could comfort themselves that they were choosing a life both harder and better than parents who stayed home.

Yet neither parents with a career nor parents who stay home are automatically choosing the better option. A mother who works to legitimately make ends meet in her household is obviously choosing the better option compared to a mother who stays home to scream abuse at her children all day and scroll TikTok. A benefit like this isn’t necessarily denying that fact. It is treating staying home to raise children as a distinct and dignified category of work, provided it is properly done.

The third line of opposition to this plan focuses on the supposed net negative which homemakers are to the economy. The economic critiques and ramification of this proposal are a topic for a much longer article, but the fact that some view such a proposal on purely economic terms speaks volumes about our highly capitalistic and amoral society. Surely the economic component is not the only one to consider. Surely we can withstand a small dent in our GDP to prioritize a way of family living that is both a valid and honorable choice.

Indeed, the very term “stay-at-home mom” would only be used by a society that sees the raising of children as merely a part of one’s life if one has children, not the main goal of it. The phrase “staying home” evokes notions of leisure and relaxation. Moms who don’t stay home, then, are treated as choosing the harder route for the sake of their children, while those who do are seen as the adorably lazy bunch. “Homemaker” as a term does a much better job encapsulating the laborious life of a mother raising the next generation.

Despite what the outrage indicates, this benefit would be a payout to whichever parent chooses to stay home – mom or dad. But everyone knows that nature dictates that this parent is usually the mother, not the father. This creates the biggest trigger for most people, as the full-time homemaker is a massive threat to a feminist culture. She represents a segment of women who simply opt out of the lies of careerism and throw off the main social victory of feminism, namely, the idea that “success” mainly occurs in the workplace.

Homemaking is also one of those few areas in life where natural gender roles remain for most. Stay-at-home dads are still a huge rarity and most families that decide not to have two full-time working parents end up having the mother stay home and the father work.

In essence, stay-at-home moms are an uncomfortable reality for cultural feminism, but a cash benefit like this would codify traditionalism in a way even some so-called conservatives find objectionable.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image credit: Pxhere