The usual political battle lines around childcare involve different visions of motherhood. (Fathers are usually assumed to be irrelevant. We are not.) In our politicized world, an argument for subsidizing daycare is taken as devaluing stay-at-home moms. Instead, we choose to make family life harder for everybody.

There’s a better way.

Imagine if the tax code offered much larger child allowances. Those who want to work outside the home could put the allowance towards daycare, ideally raising the wages of daycare workers to something more livable. Those who prefer to stay home could put the allowance to other uses, effectively turning it into pay for the work -- and it is work -- of taking care of young children. Each family could make the choice that it wants to make. Attaching the money to the child makes the gender and gender roles of parents irrelevant at a policy level; decisions like those could be made in each family, where they belong.