The purpose of this study is to quantitatively investigate any congruence between the care behavior displayed in 2021-2023 popular media and which child care policies middle- and low-income women in the US (those most impacted by child care policy changes) prefer. This analysis is simplified by the creation of a typology categorizing modes of child care behavior based on the nature of the care provider. Grounded in welfare state theory, the modes of child care provision consist of government care, familial care, charity/community care, market care, and employer care. A content analysis was conducted to explore the frequency of the five modes of child care behavior in recent popular TV shows, movies, and social media posts. A survey of 200 women in the US with at least one child and a household income below $70,000 was conducted to explore the respondents’ opinions toward five potential national child care policies, with each policy written to financially support one of the five modes of child care behavior. The results of this study indicate that while familial care is by far the most represented in popular media, middle- and low-income mothers prefer government care over familial care in terms of policy support. Results also suggest that increased popular media consumption is associated with increased support of policies funding modes of child care provision that are least frequently represented in that media (government care and employer care). This finding sits in tension with some media effect theories and posits the need for more research on mothers’ child care preferences and the mechanism by which they are constructed. Placed in the current political context, this study’s results show that Biden’s proposed child care policies are the two most preferred out of the options provided, but the popular media environment does not frequently enough display the modes of care that politicians and lower-income mothers desire.