The New Family Values Agenda: Renewing Our Social Contract

Nine years ago, a National Review cover story proclaimed, “Thanks Mom! The Case Against Working Mothers.” During the last election, the same magazine fiercely defended Sarah Palin’s right to run for Vice President

as a working mother. In 1989, Bob McDonnell wrote a Master’s thesis entitled, “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade,” labeling working women as detrimental to the family. In 2009, McDonnell, then the GOP candidate for Governor of Virginia, dismissed his own thesis as merely an “academic exercise” and claimed his views were better reflected in his recent efforts to expand child care. Even politicians who once thought vilifying working mothers was a good way to win votes seem to have woken up to the fact that the overwhelming majority of American families now depend on a mother for some or all of their income.

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