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Too often, families’ voices are missing inputs in policy design and implementation. The New Practice Lab works to change this by making the voices of parents a critical part of our policy and delivery work. The 2026 National Parent Survey demonstrates that when we listen to parents and caregivers at scale about what they need, what they want, and what would actually work best for their lives, a common thread emerges: Beyond financial security, parents with young children hope for and seek more time with their families. But we also see that there is no one path to get there, and creating enabling policies and practices will take more than one action. Families have different ideal visions for these early years, desired approaches to raising children are not homogenous, and parents are not equally positioned in terms of the challenges they face. While no single policy approach can answer every family’s needs, there is much that can be done to tackle common struggles parents have around time, wages, and access to the care options of their choice.

It is critical that policymakers follow available evidence-based research and weigh implementation realities, but they should also consider input from the people who will be most impacted by policy decisions. In the case of parents with young children, doing so points toward a range of potential policy solutions. For one, parents’ work and family lives are not separate, but mutually interdependent—with changes to paid work impacting parents’ ability to navigate all of life’s other responsibilities. We should not think of labor policy and family policy as separate either. Indeed, the survey underscores that a more expansive family policy agenda should tackle wages. In short, working hours need to pay more. But we must also strengthen retirement security to offset earnings losses for parents who reduce their paid working hours when their children are young.

Beyond income, parents need generous paid family and medical leave benefits and access to affordable child care of their choice. This survey shows access to just any available child care seat is not sufficient; all parents should have real options that better match their family’s circumstances and individual children’s needs. The survey highlights that those needs may look different from zero to five, and policy proposals should be flexible to address that variation year by year as children approach school age.

We must also center families with young children in the design and repurposing of public and private spaces (including transit), making it possible for parents to more easily get around and access the clean and safe parks, playgrounds, and kid-friendly facilities that will make play, time outside, and quality time more routine. There is much work to do through public policy, but building spaces that are welcoming for families is a project that goes beyond government institutions.

To be a parent of a young child in the United States today is to live within profound systemic constraints; to operate under the tightest of margins, both in terms of time and money; and to want more and better options than are currently available. The worthy project of dismantling these constraints to make more room for what parents love about parenthood will require attention to deep-seated inequities and sustained public investment, but this better future is possible. As policymakers at all levels of government and from many perspectives propose solutions, we can start by working proactively to consult those most impacted and design public policies that enable a greater diversity of parenting experiences. By doing so, we are more likely to meet more parents where they are, and make it possible for parents and their children to thrive.