The Shriver Report Rebuttal -- Part 1

As I wrote yesterday, The Shriver Report was completed by a left-wing organization with strong ties to the Obama adminstration. There are no recognizable conservative-minded names on the report, save for Condoleeza Rice -- who did not contribute to the writing but merely acted as an "advisor" in some way, which doesn't mean anything. She could have just offered some statistic the CAP (CAP stands for Center for American Progress, the left-wing think tank that did this research) was looking for.

The contributors to The Shriver Report are committed left wingers whose goal is to change American policies regarding work and family. They include Heather Boushey, senior economist at CAP; Ann O'Leary, senior fellow at CAP who served as a legislative director for Hilary Clinton; Karen Skelton, who also worked for the Clinton administration and was first director of political affairs for Al Gore; Ed Paisley, VP for CAP; Laura Nichols, another senior fellow at CAP and worked for former House Democratic Leader Dick Gebhardt; Leslie Miller, who is part of the senior communications team with the Obama presidential campaign; Jessica Arons, director of the women's health and rights program at CAP and prior to that, worked at the ACLU; Stephanie Coontz, director of Council for Contemporary families and author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap; Kelly Daley, women's studies major; Susan Douglas, feminist, media critic for The Progressive and author the The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women; Maria Echaveste, used to work for Bill Clinton; John Halpin, senior fellow at CAP,worked for the Al Gore presidential campaign and author of The Power of Progress: How America's Progressives Can Save Our Economy, Our Climate, Our Country...and I'm going to stop here. There are about five more, and they are no different from the above.

See a pattern yet?

That this report will be used to enact left-wing policy changes is a given. That there are no conservative voices in the report is outrageous. So let's begin with Podesta's first claim (from yesterday's blog):

• Moms aren’t home all day caring for younger children, waiting for the cable guy or to pick up the kids from school, yet quality child care and flexible hours at work are in short supply.

This is false on all three fronts.

1) Approximately 60% of mothers in America with children under 18 are their children's primary caregivers.Twenty-six percent of these mothers are not employed, while 34% work part-time. However, working “part-time” can mean working as few as ten hours a week, or only during the hours children are in school. For babies and toddlers, the percentage of mothers at home increases. Approximately 63% of mothers with children under age 6 are their children’s primary caregivers. In addition, there are approx. 148,000 SAHDs (that's stay-at-home dads) in America. In other words, saying that "moms aren't home all day waiting to pick the kids up from school" may be accurate -- but millions of parents with children under 6 are home. Podesta and his ilk routinely lump parents of small children together with parents of school-age children. They PRETEND old-fashioned parenting (with one parent bringing home the bacon and one caring for the kids) is outdated and that no one does this anymore. The truth is that most parents do stay home when their kids are young and/or work PART-TIME. Millions of them are available and able to wait for the cable guy, when needed.

2) Quality child care can never exist b/c it's open to anyone who wants it. Quality can only exist when demand is kept to a minimum. Moreover, most Americans are not clamoring for more and better child care. Sixty-eight percent of parents say child care is “not much of a problem” for their families and feel the primary responsibility of child care rests with them.

3) Arlie Hochschild's groundbreaking book, The Time Bind, proved unequivocally that despite companies offering their employees flexible hours, few women took advantage of them.

More tomorrow...

3 Responses to “The Shriver Report Rebuttal -- Part 1”:

  1. Anonymous says:

    Who knew? Figures don't lie, but liar's figure.
    Business as usual? Keep the truth flowing. Good job.

    See Ya

  2. Anonymous says:

    I'm a newbie poster on Townhall. Liked your blog. I'll be back.