Maternal child care preferences for infants,toddlers, and preschoolers: the disconnect between policy and preference in the USA

While much research exists looking at parental preferences for child care, much of that research uses child care choice as a proxy for preference. In an effort to examine the types of care mothers prefer if no constraints were placed on their decision, this quantitative study investigated how family demographic factors and family role ideology relate to the types of child care (parental and non-parental forms) mothers prefer ‘in an ideal world’ using a sample of 345 employed mothers of children under 6 years of age in a suburb of a large metropolitan area in the southern USA. Participants completed a questionnaire examining the types of care they viewed as ideal for infants (0–12 months old), toddlers (13–30 months old), and preschoolers (31–72 months old) if no constraints were placed on the decision. Results indicated that the preferences for type of care for mothers in this sample varied according to the child's age, with a large majority of mothers preferring parental care for their children. Ideological and demographic factors predicting preferences for first and second choice of child care were also explored through binary and multinomial logistic regression, revealing the influence of ethnicity, education, and family role ideology to preferences for infant care. These results add to the existing literature by confirming previous findings about the influence of child age to child care preferences, as well as highlighting the disconnect between these preferences and the way family policies are structured in the USA.