The government’s plan to revise the payment system for early childhood care has stay-at-home moms crying foul at the suggestion that working moms be given priority in getting slots in child care facilities.

The problem of over-demand created by the Park Geun-hye administration, which promised to pay for child care expenses, has been brewing for quite some time. And when abuses at child care facilities came to light in recent weeks, the government was quick to blame universal child care payments for the lack of qualified teachers.

The Welfare Ministry has since said that it would revise the current system to encourage mothers of children 2 years old and younger to take care of them at home and to give priority to children of working mothers in child care facility placements. This would be achieved by raising the child care payments made to families of children 2 years old and younger ― currently this payment is about half of that paid to families who send their children to child care facilities, so that even stay-at-home mothers have an incentive to send children to child care facilities ― and instituting more flexible schedules at child care facilities so that stay-at-home moms have the option of dropping off their children for a few hours when needed.

Although it sounds great in theory, free universal child care has been untenable from the start. A more practicable child care support system should be created in order to provide affordable quality child care for everyone.

The government should consider letting families pay for child care according to their means. This would be a far more complex task than handing out a flat, blanket payment. The payment scale would have to be calibrated according to household income, the number of children in the household enrolled at child care facilities, and other conditions and circumstances.

Getting families to pay for child care will reduce the demand among those who can take care of their children at home. At the moment, we have a situation where the rate of child care enrollment stands at 66 percent, outrunning the employment rate among mothers. Looking at the number of hours that children spend at child care facilities, children of working moms spend an average of 8 hours and 23 minutes per day while children of stay-at-home moms spend an average of 6 hours and 51 minutes there. Because the amount of child care support is the same irrespective of the hours, child care facilities favor children of stay-at-home moms over working moms.

Stay-at-home moms seem to have firmly dug in their heels in the battle over child care payments. They argue that the proposed revisions discriminate against stay-at-home moms and devalue child care and housework. Working moms are more likely to agree to the changes, since they would make more slots available for their children, even if they have to pay for them.

One thing that we know to be true in life is that nothing is really free. Free universal child care, as attractive as it sounds, does come with a price tag that is borne by everyone. Making people using the services bear the cost according to their ability to pay is a way of encouraging only those who require the services to use them. The government, in turn, should work to make more high-quality child care services available.