改革我国儿童保育体系的势头正在增强，家长们已告知决策者，现行体系费用过高，绝大多数美国职工家庭难以负担。
Real momentum is building around efforts to reform our country’s childcare system, which parents have told policymakers is too costly and inaccessible for the vast majority of American working families.
纽约市刚刚宣布一项新计划，将为超过1万名儿童提供免费保育。不到一年前，新墨西哥州成为首个不论家庭收入均提供普惠、免费保育的州。
New York City just announced a new program that will provide free childcare to more than 10,000 children. Less than a year ago, New Mexico became the first state to offer universal, no-cost childcare regardless of family income.
众议员罗·卡纳（民主党-加利福尼亚州）近日提出《美国免费儿童保育法案》，这是众多2028年总统选举潜在候选人表明支持普惠保育平台的最新例证。全国民调显示，全美超过80%的家长支持增加联邦对保育的资助。
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) recently introduced the Free Child Care for America Act, one of many 2028 hopefuls signaling their support for a universal childcare platform. National polling shows that more than 80 percent of parents nationwide support more federal funding for childcare.
这一运动能否持续成功，将取决于文化层面的博弈。大量数据表明，可及的保育对家庭大有裨益。然而，家庭如何照料子女不仅仅是由证据支撑的政策问题。保育关乎家庭福祉最私密的层面，想要推广保育的人必须驾驭围绕该议题盘旋的复杂叙事，才能构建持久的支持。
The continued success of this movement will be decided on cultural terrain. There is plenty of data that shows how beneficial accessible childcare is to families. However, how families care for their children isn’t just a policy issue informed by evidence. Childcare touches on the most intimate elements of family wellbeing, and those who want to expand it must navigate the complex narratives swirling on this issue if they want to build durable support.
目前，最清晰地为居家照料诉求代言的声音来自生育主义者和倒退派，他们不惜一切代价推崇传统性别等级以增加人口。这是个问题，因为这些做法只会惠及社会中一小部分特权阶层。进步派不能在这一议题上被边缘化。
Right now, the voices speaking most clearly to the desire for at-home care are pronatalist and regressive, favoring traditional gender hierarchies to grow the population at all costs. That is a problem, because these efforts will only benefit a small, privileged sliver of society. Progressives cannot get boxed out on this issue.
我们的组织——框架研究院——一直在研究塑造美国人对儿童与家庭议题理解的文化心智模式。我们的研究显示，若在关于儿童的政策对话中，缺乏识别并驾驭关于育儿、儿童、性别以及由谁承担照料责任等根深蒂固叙事与主流心智模式的能力，将阻碍家庭的长远进步。
Our organization, the FrameWorks Institute, has been studying the cultural mindsets that shape Americans’ understanding of child and family issues. Our research shows that engaging in policy conversations about children without the ability to see and navigate entrenched narratives and prevailing mindsets about parenting, children, gender and whose responsibility it is to care for kids, can stall long-term progress for families.
确保托育方案回应家庭的现实与需求至关重要。越来越多的证据表明，并非所有父母都想要中心式托育，尤其是针对婴幼儿。由罗宾汉基金会和新美国智库的新实践实验室对4306名纽约市父母和照护者进行的一项新调查显示，许多父母想要不同的选择。只有13%的受访者倾向于为婴幼儿选择中心式项目。
Ensuring childcare solutions respond to the realities and needs of families is key. There is mounting evidence that not all parents want center-based care, especially for infants. A new survey of 4,306 New York City parents and caregivers by the Robin Hood Foundation and New America’s New Practice Lab suggests that many parents want something different. Only 13 percent favored center-based programs for infants.
无论是在纽约还是其他地方，关于这一话题的讨论大多集中在托育中心，而对家庭托育关注不足，尽管大量家庭使用这类托育选择，且它们正以令人担忧的速度关闭。家庭托育被工薪阶层家庭和有色人种家庭不成比例地使用。对数百万美国家庭而言，家庭托育环境比中心更便利，也能提供更多舒适感和安心感。
Much of the discussion about this topic in New York and elsewhere is focused on childcare centers and not enough on home care, despite the fact that large numbers of families use these care options, and they are closing at a disturbing rate. Home care is disproportionately used by working class families and families of color. For millions of U.S. families, home care settings are more convenient and offer more comfort and peace of mind than centers.
制定解决方案将需要两党共识。保守派经常谈论家庭托育，并以一种让许多父母感到被倾听的方式回应这一需求。
Creating solutions will require bipartisan consensus. Conservatives talk about home care often and are speaking to this need in a way that makes many parents feel heard.
我们看到，像副总统JD·万斯这样的生育鼓励派领袖将家庭式托育作为保守派家庭政策的核心，主张政府应奖励生育多个孩子、女性居家照料孩子，以及公共支持仅惠及在婚姻关系中抚养孩子的人。特朗普政府推出的一个名为Moms.gov的新网站也呼应了这一论调。
We’ve watched pronatalist leaders like Vice President JD Vance make home-based care a centerpiece of conservative family policy, arguing that the government should reward people for having multiple children, for women staying at home to care for them and for public support going only to those raising kids within marriage. A new website launched by the Trump administration, called Moms.gov, echoes this rhetoric.
托育倡导者绝不能让生育鼓励派垄断关于居家托育的对话。当生育鼓励派控制居家托育叙事时，将福利与婚姻状况挂钩就变得越来越被接受；由于不同收入和种族群体的结婚率差异巨大，这会导致资源不成比例地流向高收入和白人家庭，而将单亲和低收入家庭排除在外。
Childcare advocates must not let pronatalists own the conversation on in-home care. When pronatalists control the in-home care narrative, it becomes increasingly acceptable for benefits to be tied to marital status which, because marriage rates differ sharply by income and race, channels resources disproportionately to higher-income and white households, leaving out single-parent and low-income families.
以家庭为基础的育儿照护需要成为纽约市长佐赫兰·马姆达尼等进步派的核心议题，否则他们就有可能疏远许多照护者，并将这块阵地拱手让人。如果特朗普被认为让在家照护婴幼儿变得更容易，而进步派被视为给这种照护形式设置障碍，或者根本不提及它，那便是个问题。
Home-based childcare needs to be front and center for progressives like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, or else they risk alienating many caregivers and ceding this ground. It’s a problem if Trump is perceived as making it easier to care for babies at home, and progressives are seen as creating barriers to this form of care or not mentioning it at all.
并非马姆达尼和其他领导人完全在政策规划中排除了家庭照护，而是他们在公开谈论儿童与家庭福祉时，没有把这种照护形式纳入其中。领导人应在政策和传播中刻意将家庭照护置于优先位置。这样做表明他们理解家庭的需求，并正在尽力满足这些需求。
It’s not that Mamdani and other leaders are totally leaving home care out of their policy plans, but rather that they aren’t including this type of care when they are out talking about child and family wellbeing. Leaders should go out of their way to prioritize home care — in their policies and their communications. Doing so shows that they understand what families want and are doing what they can to meet their needs.
围绕教室学位和入学名额构建的育儿照护扩容方案，忽视了那些依赖祖父母、邻居和持证家庭托育服务提供者的家庭，尤其是在移民社区和有色人种社区。一个行之有效的育儿照护体系，要求优先支持家庭自主选择的照护环境。
A childcare scale-up built around classroom seats and enrollment slots overlooks those who rely on grandparents, neighbors and licensed family childcare providers, especially in immigrant neighborhoods and communities of color. A childcare system that works requires prioritizing care in the settings families choose.
围绕育儿照护日益高涨的势头正在创造真正的变革机遇。如果生育主义运动主导了关于居家照护的叙事，我们最终将得到一个为某种神话般的过去式家庭设计的体系，而非为当下真实存在于这个国家的家庭设计的体系。
The growing momentum around childcare is creating real opportunities for change. If the pronatalist movement is left to dominate the narrative around in-home care, we will end up with a system designed for the families of some mythic past rather than those who exist right here, right now in this country.
如果我们希望纽约市正在发生的变化取得成功并向全国其他地区辐射，我们的政策——以及我们的叙事——必须反映家庭所需的全方位育儿照护选择。
If we want what’s happening in New York City to succeed and cascade to other parts of our nation, our policies — and our narratives — must reflect the full range of childcare options that families need.
莫伊拉·奥尼尔是框架研究所高级副总裁兼项目主管，纳特·肯德尔-泰勒是该研究所首席执行官。
Moira O’Neil is senior vice president of programs and Nat Kendall-Taylor is chief executive officer at the FrameWorks Institute.