“…This policy recalls Élisabeth Badinter's argument that there is an important difference between welfare policies designed to promote parity by allowing equal access to the workforce and those designed to make it easier for women to stay at home (2011,136). In fact, social scientist Mechthild Veil (2010) argues that this tension defines German family politics, which neither supports the employment of mothers nor adequately recognizes their care work. She attributes this impasse to the differing models of motherhood in East and West Germany, on the one hand, and the conflicting constitutional claims that "marriage and family come under the special protection of the state order" and "men and women are equal" (216).…”