Barack Obama continued to push his "Preschool for All Initiative" while giving a speech in Rhode Island on Oct. 31.
The president wants all communities to adopt a public pre-school system so families can afford to put their kids in a daycare program that will help the children's development.
"Too often parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper day care that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development," the president said.
The burden of daycare can force some families to keep a parent at home with children, usually the mother, which "then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result," Obama continued. "That's not a choice we want Americans to make."
The last statement inflamed some Americans who voluntarily make that "choice" and want to be a stay-at-home parent for their young child. It's also not the first time Obama and his team have upset America's stay-at-home parents.
Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen accused Mitt Romney's wife Ann of "never working a day in her life," during an interview with CNN in April 2012. Ann immediately took to Twitter, her first tweet ever, and wrote, "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work."
Obama's re-election team disavowed the Rosen's statement minutes later, but the whole episode portrayed the Democratic Party as insensitive and opposed to women who choose to stay home and take care of their children.
In his Rhode Island speech, Obama used the example of him and his wife Michelle as parents who chose to keep working when their children were young, but still felt the guilt of not spending as much time with their two daughters as they wished.
"That's the catch-22 of working parents. We wanted to spend time with our kids but we also wanted to make sure we gave them the opportunities that our hard work was providing," he said.
The president proposed the goal of providing pre-K for 6 million children by 2020. That would account for almost three-fourths of the 8.1 million children ages 3 to 4 years old in the United States.
Rough estimates show only a quarter of children in that age group are enrolled in a public system, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Another quarter are enrolled in private programs. That still leaves almost 4 million children whose parents may not have the funds to give their child an early education before starting kindergarten at age 5 or 6.
"Moms and dads deserve a great place to drop their kids off every day that doesn't cost them an arm and a leg," Obama said. "We need better child care, day care, early child education policies."
