2006 Mothers Day Campaign: Mothers at Work

Detours, one-way streets, off-ramps and on-ramps are all part of the real story of motherhood. So why is there the common notion that the "highways" are only made for a certain type of vehicle: a super-charged, streamlined sports car (the "ideal worker" - a person who can work 40+ hours a week without interruption by family or other obligations)? What about vehicles that must make frequent stops, or go slower than the speed limit, that need access to many more on-ramps and off-ramps than our highway system has designed?

In 2006, Mothers & More’s Mother’s Day Campaign wanted society to not only notice our signs, but to really read them. A "Mother at Work" is always at work, whether she’s with her kids or not, whether she’s an at home mom or in the paid workplace. She’s right in front of you doing something important, something real, something she does around the clock. Caregiving work is not an impediment to "real work" (paid work), it is real work, with real social and economic value.

Goals of the Campaign

• To recognize and honor all the work mothers do - paid and unpaid.
• To educate about and explore how a mother’s work is affected by workplace and public policy and social attitudes, both now and throughout her life.
• To explore the next steps in pursuit of designating May as a month devoted to public awareness and discussion of mothers’ realities and needs.

Blog

Talented mothers shared their perspectives, personal and analytical, on their role as mothers and how society viewed that role.

Photos of construction signs were collected and posted on the blog from submissions around the country, along with commentary on how those construction signs pertained to mothers and the struggles they face. The appropriateness of many construction and street signs to the work of mothers was striking. How many times in a mother’s life has it been appropriate to say "Detour Ahead" or "Be Prepared to Stop" or "Soft Shoulder" or "Narrow Lanes Ahead"?

Bloggers included:

• Deb was a stay-at-home mother residing in MA with her husband and two young daughters. She also has a son who was then serving in the military. Special interests included learning about the issues that affect mothers at societal level and tying them into the day-to-day activities of family life. She feels educating ourselves so that we can make informed decisions is the best way to empower ourselves and our families.
• Joy had been a member of Mothers & More for 17 years.  She has two children; a daughter who was 20 and a son who was 17.  She was grateful for the circle of family, friends and Mothers & More that kept her afloat for the previous two years as she navigated through the rapids of life: first kid left for college, second kid developed obsessive/compulsive disorder, marriage of 24 years ended in divorce.
• Leslie was a single mom working overtime trying to support two special-needs kids 11 years before. In 2006 Leslie hadn't received a paycheck in nearly 5 years, was married, and had added 2 more kids to the mix. Leslie's eldest, a boy who was about to turn 18, had severe ADHD. Her second was then a 14-year-old girl with spina bifida and mild mental retardation. Her third and fourth were boys about to turn 5 and 1. When she worked for money, Leslie was a software engineer and did some technical writing. She was 42 years old and lived in Texas.
• Rachel worked as a newspaper copy editor and designer for five years before she stayed home to raise twin boys, 3. Before that job, she was an editorial assistant at a publishing company for two years. She had been married for four and half year and a member of Mothers & More for two and half years. She loved to write and was trying to find a career where she could combine writing and raising her sons from home.
• OneDriven Mama is a long time member of Mothers & More. She has two children, one then nearly a tween and one then in pre-K. All her life she was inspired by the life stories of her foremothers. Many of them were ahead of their time, and some were penalized for being mothers. She was determined that her children would not grow up to a "Hobson's Choice," in caring for themselves and their families.
• Heard on the POWER Loop - Fragments of discussions from the Mothers & More POWER Loop which was featuring a total of 14 guests during the month of May.

POWER Loop

For the 2005 Mother’s Day Campaign, the POWER Loop featured guest speakers to discuss weekly topics featured within Mothers & More’s POWER Plan, Mothers & More’s advocacy guide.

Week 1 Theme: All the work mothers do - whether paid or unpaid - has social and economic value.
Guest speakers:

• Joy Rose, founder of Mamapalooza. Joy has said that working at her craft, making art, saved her life and reconnected her to aspects of her identity that had been discarded through the years of mothering her 4 children. Seriously ill, divorced - barely hanging on - she discovered that the music kept dogging her. She had to make music or die. She combines her passion for making music in the band, Housewives on Prozac with taking care of her children, recognizing that both of these require work that is often invisible and underappreciated. She is the founder and director of Mamapalooza, art and music festivals held around the country, featuring women and mother-inspired rock music.
• Joni B. Cole, co-editor, This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America. Ms. Cole is a returning guest to the POWER Loop. She was featured last year, also in connection with the Mother’s Day Campaign, for her wisdom about the issue of time and the American woman. Joni B. Cole was having a bad day when she thought up the idea for This Day in the Life. Trying to deal with a serious illness in her family, a huge tax bill, and a child who refused to wear socks, she wondered if anyone else was feeling so low. Surely not. But what were other women doing and feeling and thinking on this very same day? And so a book was born, out of self pity, curiosity, and a need to connect. In addition to her work as a writer/editor, Joni leads community fiction-writing workshops and is the author of the book, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive. She received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a concentration in creative writing from Dartmouth College. She and her husband, Stephen, a psychologist, and their two daughters live in Vermont.
• Beverley Smith of Kids First and author of Anchors and Sails. On January 4, 2002 Canadian homemaker and teacher Beverley Smith wrote to the Attorney General of Canada, Anne McLellan, requesting that she refer to the Supreme Court of Canada for hearing six questions of law concerning the value of caregiving in Canada. In March 2006, she participated with women from all over the world at the United Nations Church in New York City to voice the need for recognition of the value of homemakers and at-home caregivers.
  

Week 2 Theme: Mothers have the right to fulfill their caregiving responsibilities without incurring social and economic penalties.
Guest speakers:

• Anne Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood and if You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything. Ann Crittenden is an award-winning journalist, author, and lecturer. Her book, If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything, received critical praise and was featured in People magazine. Her previous book, The Price of Motherhood, garnered widespread media attention and was named one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year in 2001. The book is already being called a classic. A frequent guest on the Mothers & More POWER Loop, and a keynote speaker at the Mothers & More 2001 National Conference, Ann continues to be an outspoken, passionate and invaluable resource for those framing the work and issues encapsulated in a "mothers’ movement."
• Heather Boushey, Economist, Center for Economic Policy Research. Heather Boushey joined the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in 2003. Her work focuses on the U.S. labor market, social policy, and work and family issues. Dr. Boushey’s work ranges from examinations of current trends in the U.S. labor market and how families balance work and child care needs to how young people have fared in today’s economy and health insurance coverage. She has testified before Congress and authored numerous reports and commentaries on issues affecting working families, including the implications of the 1996 welfare reform. She is a co-author of The State of Working American 2002-3 and Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families. Dr. Boushey is a Research Affiliate with the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and on the editorial review board of WorkingUSA and the Journal of Poverty. Her work has appeared in Dollars & Sense, In These Times, and New Labor Forum, and peer-reviewed journals, including Review of Political Economy and National Women’s Studies Association Journal. Previously, she was at the Economic Policy Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research and her B.A. from Hampshire College.

Week 3 Theme: All women deserve recognition and support for their right to choose if and how to combine parenting and paid employment.
Guest speakers:

• Shirley M. Clark and Patricia S. Reed of Choose 2 Lead Women’s Foundation. The staff and founders at Choose 2 Lead are dedicated to empowering women with tools to lead in their work lives, as they negotiate the roads out and back into employment opportunity. They have been meeting with women across the country and gathering data for a study funded by the Department of Labor’s Workforce Training Administration. Shirley M. Clark is a founding partner of Choose 2 Lead Women’s Foundation. She is also the owner of Shirley Clark & Associates, LLC, an organizational consulting firm in the financial services industry. With over 25 years of business and management experience in both entrepreneurial and Fortune 500 companies, her endeavors now focus on organizational change and change management. Along with her Choose 2 Lead co-founder, Shirley co-authored Win-Win Workplace Practices: Improved Organizational Results and Improved Quality of Life, a report that analyzed the bottom-line impacts of innovative workplace practices for the U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau. Their then current study, for the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, was an in-depth qualitative look at the career paths of highly educated and achieved women. Patricia S. Reed is a founding partner of Choose 2 Lead Women’s Foundation and President of Reed Strategies, LLC. Patricia has over 20 years of experience in policy, regulatory and management consulting, including communicating with the public and facilitating cooperative ventures between government, industry, and interest groups. Patricia is the co-author of Win-Win Workplace Practices: Improved Organizational Results and Improved Quality of Life, a report that analyzed the bottom-line impacts of innovative workplace practices for the U.S. Department of Labor. She is the former Director of Programs at the Independent Women’s Forum, where her areas of emphasis included work/family balance, education, and environmental and legal issues. She also spent 15 years as a Program and Project Manager in the management consulting industry in Washington, D.C., Denver, and Philadelphia.
• Katie Corrigan, Sharon Masling and Barbara Cammarata of Workplace Flexibility 2010.
  Workplace Flexibility 2010 is a campaign to support the development of a comprehensive national policy on workplace flexibility at the federal, state and local levels. The vision of Workplace Flexibility 2010 is an American workplace where valuable flexibility options, benefiting employers and employees alike, are the standard. Two legal scholars who job share with the project will talk about why public policy should be part of the conversation on flexibility and explain some of the models that are out there right now. The Flexibility 2010 project was not advocating a particular policy position of its own at the time, but its staff had a depth of knowledge on the range of models and on comparative policy solutions.
• Amy Nassisi, Mothers & More member and founder of the Flexibility Alliance, San Francisco, CA. Known as the "on-ramp to flexible work for highly skilled mothers," the Flexibility Alliance’s vision is for every skilled mother in search of balance to be able to succeed in her career on a flexible basis. Ms. Nassisi’s life roles span that of Sr. Director of Business Development at Seibel Systems, a community leader and advocate, as well as that of entrepreneur and mother. She has a terrific sense for the kind of equality and balance mothers need to seek at home, as well as within the workplace.
• Leslie Morgan Steiner lives in Washington, DC with her husband and three young children. She works at The Washington Post on a blog about working motherhood called OnBalance. Her then-recent compilation of mama-essays, The Mommy Wars: Stay at home moms and career moms face off about their choices, their lives and their families, had generated acclaim as well as controversy. In addition to years as a nonfiction magazine writer and editor, Steiner has an MBA degree in marketing from the Wharton School of Business. She launched Splenda Brand Sweetener around the world for Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest consumer healthcare company. Over the years, she has turned her professional experience into advocacy for abused women as a spokeswoman at The Harriet Tubman Center in Minneapolis. She joined The Washington Post in February 2001. Leslie feels passionate about the need for workplace flexibility and joined us to discuss the many different roads she's been on during her parenting years, and brainstorm with us about how the road could be better for everyone.
• Joan Blades is co-founder of MoveOn.org and Berkeley Systems with her husband, Wes Boyd. She is on the steering committee of Reuniting America: A Transpartisan Campaign of Political Reconciliation, a group engaging people from diverse political points of view in respectful dialogue that leads to creative, breakthrough solutions to the challenges facing our nation. Joan is the author of Mediate Your Divorce, and is also an organizer of and a contributor to MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Be a Catalyst for Change. In collaboration with author Kristin-Rowe Finkbeiner (below) her latest book, The Motherhood Manifesto: What American’s Moms Want and What to Do About It explores an agenda for moving the persistent needs and issues of mothers and families forward, into the public arena. The proceeds of this book were dedicated to kicking off an organization to champion these issues, MomsRising: Breadmakers and Breadwinners, at www.momsrising.org. She lives in northern California with her husband and two children.
• Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner is an author, freelance journalist, and consultant in the field of environmental policy and political strategy. Kristin is the author of the award winning book, The F-Word: Faminism in Jeoparty – Women, Politics, and the Future. In collaboration with lawyer, business leader and activist Joan Blades (above), her latest book The Motherhood Manifesto: What America’s Moms Want and What to Do About It explores an agenda for moving the persistent needs and issues of mothers and families forward - into the public arena. The proceeds of this book were dedicated to kicking off an organization to champion these issues, MomsRising: Breadmakers and Breadwinners, at www.momsrising.org. She writes frequently on the public policy and women’s issues. She lives in Washington state.

Week 4 Theme: Wrap Up - Discussions will include creating a month devoted to mothers and the Mothers’ Movement.
Guest speakers:

• Judith Stadtman Tucker, Mothers & More member, founder and editor of Mothers’ Movement Online. Judy is a co-founder of the Mothers & More POWER loop and the conscience of the emerging mothers’ movement. Motherhood motivated her to become an activist and independent scholar for the benefit of all mothers. She has appeared at numerous conferences as a guest speaker and panelist and is the author of Care as a Cause: Framing the Twenty-First Century Mothers’ Movement in the anthology Socializing Care (2006). She served on the NOW Mothers and Caregivers Economic Rights Committee and the Board of Directors of Take Back Your Life.
• Kristin Maschka, member of Mothers & More and President Emeritus of Mothers & More. Kristin joined Mothers & More even before the birth of her daughter when she realized that she would need all the help she could get to move from one kind of life to another as she hit "the maternal wall" in her professional life, and the numbers for continued workplace participation just did not "add up." After hanging out with members of the POWER loop, Kristin was inspired to start a chapter in Pasadena, California and to volunteer her powerful and transforming knowledge base and skill set to the work of the Mothers & More Board of Directors. Kristin is an expert and professional consultant in the field of organization development and change, and got her start managing training and organization development for the Internet company, Earthlink.

Week 5

• Caitlin Flanagan, New Yorker columnist and author of To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. Caitlin Flanagan’s essays are passed from friend to friend, challenged and championed in the media, and often made the subject of book group discussions. Her article Confessions of a Prep School College Counselor has earned Flanagan a spot in the Best American Essays 2003 and Best American Magazine Writing 2003. A contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, and now, The New Yorker, her work sparks debate as well as laughter among readers. To Hell with All That explores the events and conflicts of modern life for mothers with a gaze back at the life of Flanagan's own mother.

The POWER Loop is a member benefit and online forum for intelligent, informative and lively discussion, news articles and recent studies related to the impact of our American culture and society on the shared experience, social value and economics of motherhood. The mission of the POWER Loop is to explore Patterns Of Women's Experience and Employment with Respect and Recognition for Mothers.