This Is Not News

Milestones in your child’s life, like most of the parenting experience, often come with a mixed bag of emotions. The one our daughter reached this week is no exception.

One one hand, Alex turned five, certainly a milestone birthday in her mind and ours. We celebrated by taking her to Hershey, PA, specifically the Hershey’s Chocolate World Tour. To say that she enjoyed it is a understatement. She exhibited the kind of joy that we adults seem to lose somewhere around puberty in that she literally shook with excitement. And not just from the chocolate high, either. Even when recounting the trip to her grandma the following day, she was unable to keep her body still for more than a nano-second. She also couldn’t get the words out fast enough to describe it. She was loud, rambling and joyful in way that just stamps down your parental instinct to say “shush” and “use your inside voice.” In the end, we just let her go because when your child is exhibiting that kind of excitement and happiness, you really don’t want it to end.

On the other hand, Alex is now five, which means she’ll be leaving the very fine day care facility she currently attends to go to kindergarten in the fall and with that comes an entire host of problems. Choosing a school (which will be the subject of another post, I assure you), navigating the various registration and waiting list pitfalls, and then, finding out that our school options may not offer “extended care” for the hours before and after school when our jobs require us to be someplace other than with Alex. And lets not even get into the cost of these extended care programs when they are available. The entire task is so daunting that I found myself trying to relive the experiences of the previous weekend in my head to remind myself of why we’re doing it all. The answer comes readily: for Alex. We can’t be everywhere at once. We need to provide food, shelter, and health care for her so if finding a school with an extended day care program that covers our working hours takes a pick axe and spelunking helmet, so be it. It needs to be done.

And, the fact is, we’re among the lucky ones. The jobs that Dave and I have provide Alex with health care, money to cover our mortgage, food and clothing, funds for day care and we thankfully still have enough non-working time to actually be parents. Not everyone is so lucky. Millions of parents in this country work long hours to meet the needs of their children and can still come up short. I was reminded of this fact during this same week.

In between driving to open houses, calling schools to ask about extended care, and filling out registration forms, I found myself listening to a radio interview with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder of Moms Rising, an advocacy group for such “mom” issues as affordable health care, longer and more comprehensive family leave, workplace rights, higher-wages etc. Some of the statistics she cited which caught my ear as I drove to work included:

The National Center for Children in Poverty reports that 28 million children in this country are growing up in low-income families. More than 81% of them have at least one working parent whose income is simply not sufficient.

The U.S. is one of only five countries of 168 studied that doesn’t mandate some form of paid maternal leave, putting us on par with Papua New Guinea, Lesotho, and Swaziland.

A recent study found non-mothers in the U.S. made 90 cents to a man’s dollar, moms made 73 cents to the dollar, and single moms made 56 to 66 cents to a man’s dollar. A study of hiring practices for high wage jobs in 2005 found mothers were offered $11,000 lower starting salaries than equally qualified non-mothers.

Statistics from 2001 reveal that a full one-quarter of U.S. families with children under age six earned less than $25,000.

More than 40,000 kindergarteners in this country are home alone after school. More than 14,000,000 kindergarteners through twelfth grade kids are on their own after school without supervision.

And yes, I did have to pull over and catch my breath after I heard those last ones.

While I’m not sure I know enough about Moms Rising to endorse them unequivocally, I have to admire their mission. And if it succeeds, the potential is mind-boggling. It’s not simply aiming to be Soccer Moms 2.0. We’re talking less catchy demographic description, and more full-fledged Parental PAC. Our system allows for anyone with an issue, cause, or special interest to try and make their voice heard, for better or for worse. The ones with the deepest pockets are often the loudest, unfortunately. But, every once in a while, with the right coordination and savvy, the weaker succeed by just getting louder.

And, I ask you, who knows more about volume than parents?

Parents need to get louder about issues such as affordable heath and child care, education, flexible work schedules, and paid family leave. There are now simply too many social, economic and legal obstacles to being a good parent these days for us not to be as loud as we can be. Too many parents are too bogged down in the realities of simply surviving to provide their children the kind of body-shaking joyful moments that all children deserve to have and all parents deserve to see.

These days there are a lot of people running around asking to be president. Hang out on YouTube for a while and you can’t miss ‘em. Anyway, they’ve all got a lot of special interest groups vying for their attention and they in turn are vying for voters’ attention. They also know that working adults with children under the age of 18 constitute one heck of a voting block.

What better time to show them what happens when parents stop using their inside voices?