This week, MOTHERS Book Bag blogger and MOTHERS enewsletter author and coordinator, Anne-Marie Nichols will be blogging from The Big Tent and from her home in Northern Colorado.
It’s Sunday before Convention Week here in the greater Denver-Boulder metro area. While people are already meeting downtown, I’m tuning up my laptop, packing my backpack, and making childcare arrangements for my children, Nathan, 8, and Lucie, 5.
It’s a challenging week for us as a family. To be at The Big Tent, I’m taking time off work. (Like most work-from-home freelancers, I have a variety of clients, part-time gigs, and consulting work that makes up my job.) I’ve hired a mom who does daycare out of her home to provide after school care for my children. And, I’ve made arrangements with another mother (she works at home some days, but most days at her employer’s office) to pick up the kids in the afternoon and take them to their sitter’s. Most days, I’ll have to leave Denver by 4:00 p.m. or so to pick the kids up by 5:30 p.m., since my husband’s schedule will be less flexible than mine due to an impending trip.
The moms are coming and we want answers
Why do I share all this with you? Well, I’m not the only mom in town making childcare arrangements to be in Denver this week. There’s the MOMocrats, PunditMom, Queen of Spain, bloggers working with BlogHer (see my sidebar BlogHer badge), Huffington Post, and more, too. (Note: while many moms blog for BlogHer and the Huffington Post, not all of their women bloggers are moms.)
While we’re in Denver, we moms will be wearing our political hats. However, the reality is that some of us never remove our mom hats. If fact, we do believe that the maternal is political, and not just the name of a book. Many of us are concerned about what MOTHERS has been working for, basically that correcting the economic disadvantages facing caregivers is the big unfinished business of the women’s movement:
- Motherhood has become the single greatest risk factor for poverty in old age.
- The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal and child poverty of any advanced country.
- The U.S. does not offer paid family leave for birth of a child, adoption of a child, or to take care of an ill relative.
- American women make 38 cents to a man’s dollar due to caregiving responsibilities that affect their lifetime income and career development.
Dare I mention guaranteed and paid sick leave, maternity leave, maternal profiling, health insurance, and more?
Yes, the economy is a huge issue this election as are the war in Iraq and the environment. All those issues affect families, too. But will we hear from the Democrats on other issues that matter most to mothers, fathers, caregivers, and families? Join me this week and see.
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