In an era dominated by right-wing attempts to force women back into barefoot-and-pregnant mode, the new organization Moms Rising is a welcome push-back.
The organization is the brainchild of Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, who co-authored The Motherhood Manifesto that sets forth an agenda for addressing the many problems families face today: lack of economic security, job flexibility, health care, decent child care, and maternity/paternity leave--the generally family-unfriendly policies that cause stress and hardship for so many mothers and fathers. (Read an article adapted from the book here.)
You may recognize the name Joan Blades: she's a co-founder, with her husband Wes Boyd, of MoveOn. The right wing claims that progressives are anti-family, but Blades's and Rowe-Finkbeiner's credentials as feminists and progressives are solid, as is their commitment to improving conditions for families.
But where the right wing believes that women should marry, stay home, and raise kids, Moms Rising faces the reality that two incomes are not a luxury for most working women, who couldn't afford to stay home if they wanted to. Moms Rising is also aware that the many single parents struggling to bring up their kids face even greater challenges.
Women, many of whom are mothers, make up 46% of the American workforce, yet jobs are still structured, for the most part, as if workers have no families. Despite oft-repeated phrases like "children are our most important resource" (and there's a lot wrong with that statement, by the way, but I'll let it go for now) and "raising the next generation is the most important job there is," child care for working parents is a haphazard affair, well-trained and caring child care workers can be hard to find, and those workers are ill-paid.
I hardly need to mention the millions of uninsured people, including something like 8 million children, who go without health care. And our infant mortality rate is, or should be, a matter of shame in this country:
Among 33
industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta,
Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies,
according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.
[snip]
The U.S. ranking is
driven partly by racial and income disparities. Among U.S. blacks,
there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing
nations than to those in the industrialized world.
It's time for those of us who consider ourselves liberals or progressives to speak up against such atrocities and to point out that a concern for the survival, health, and quality of life for infants already born makes one just as pro-life as any anti-choice fanatic claims to be.
Moms Rising, like MoveOn, features ongoing actions you can take on matters such as paid parental leave and health care. Currently, the organization is also conducting a voter registration drive among graduating seniors.
So pop on over, check this organization out, sign some petitions, and take some actions to help strengthen our families. If you like what you see, sign up and tell your friends about it. It's past time to let the people in power know that the right wing doesn't have a lock on caring about families and children. And it's time to work together toward real solutions to problems that cannot be solved individually within each family alone.