MomsRising: Fighting for What Families Care About

Luckily she found a friend, a music teacher, to agree to be a part-time nanny and she cut back her hours at work. A part-time social worker who is a single mom doesn’t necessarily earn enough and I worry about what it will mean when it’s time for my nephew to enter preschool—as the costs can be astronomical. (For more information, see “American Child Care: Poor Quality at a Sky-High Price”)

Enter MomsRising.org

Stories like this don’t surprise Joan Blades. In fact, they are the reason why she felt compelled to do something. As the former co-founder of MoveOn.org, Joan is a veteran in motivating people and giving them the technical tools to impact change. She’s now giving those tools to families with her latest endeavor: MomsRising.org. Like MoveOn, MomsRising pushes for policy change by galvanizing it’s now 80,000 members to begin demanding family-friendly policies, often through email campaigns that require only a digital signature from its members to participate. Some of the policies the organization supports include paid maternity leave, paternity leave, equal pay for mothers, and higher pay and standards for day care workers and facilities. Last week, I chatted by phone with Joan, a working mom of two in northern California. She outlined her goals for MomsRising and her hopes for a future that provides more support to America’s working families.   

Laura: Is it realistic to expect the government to pass legislation mandating paid maternity leave of some length in the next ten years?

Joan: Yes, it’s a very realistic goal. In the long term, not only is it something right to do, it’s something smart to do. When you don’t give parents the ability to take care of their children, you are not only undermining the parent, but our future. In twenty years, these kids are going to be the engine of our economy.

Laura: Is our government failing working mothers and families?

Joan: The data tells me they are not succeeding. When having a child is the top cause for a poverty spill for families, we have a problem. That is just sad. We can do many things to improve that.