Mitt Romney: Poor Stay-At-Home Moms Should Work

“My career choice was to be a mother, and I think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make…Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling and that’s why we’re running. We care about those people that are struggling.”
~Ann Romney

When Ann Romney made this statement on Fox News last week, she probably should have known that it would come back to haunt her and and her husband. How could she have not known that there would be video tape of her husband being a complete hypocrite? Well, that footage has now been found and it blows a hole Romney’s ‘war on moms’ attack against President Obama.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes discovered that in January of this year, Mitt Romney told a crowd in New Hampshire that he wants to force poor women who stay at home to care for their children to go to work.

“I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that day care, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

Here’s the damning footage:


So when wealthy moms like Ann Romney stay home to raise their kids, it’s work, but when financially struggling mothers stay home with their kids, it’s not. Romney even goes further. Apparently when poor mothers stay home with their kids they have no dignity either. This is exactly the point Hillary Rosen was trying to make on CNN last week. Ann Romney is worth over $250 million. She clearly could afford to stay home and mother her kids. That’s assuming the Romney’s never hired chefs, nannies, or maids to do a good part of the raising. Poor mothers on the other hand don’t have the same luxury. They either choose to stay home and care for their children while relying on welfare or they choose to work, sometime multiple jobs. Clearly, Romney doesn’t respect all the choices women make and he certainly doesn’t have compassion for struggling moms who want to stay at home.