MOTHERS & MORE ANNOUNCES PLAN FOR A MOTHERS' MOVEMENT

Mother's Day 2003 - As part of its first Mother's Day Campaign, Mothers & More has announced its POWER Plan - a list that details the changes it wants to see in public policy, private practice and cultural attitudes and how the organization will contribute to the effort of securing social and economic equality for mothers.

"Mothers have always carried primary responsibility for the care of children whether or not they also work for pay," says Kristin Maschka, President of Mothers & More. "It is time that society provides real options for mothers to carry out that responsibility to the best of their abilities. Until our public policy, private practices and cultural attitudes truly reflect the value and importance of unpaid caregiving work, mothers will continue to face higher rates of poverty, greater economic risk and very real constraints on their ability to meet their own needs, those of their children and those of their families."

The POWER Plan is a result of careful consideration of the many societal, governmental and business practices that adversely affect mothers, how they relate to Mothers & More's mission and beliefs, and which issues were most universally urgent to the organization's members. The POWER Plan calls for redefining "work" such that unpaid caregiving is treated as having equal social and economic value to paid work and for reorganizing all forms of work to reflect that definition. The POWER Plan outlines three main areas of focus for educating, advocating, and calling for direct action.

The first area on the agenda focuses on redefining "work" by pushing to make effective use of the data that is being gathered on caregiving work through the American Time Use Survey - an effort of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Without accurate data on who is performing this work and how much of it is being done, our elected representatives cannot make informed policy decisions. Mothers & More intends to create a plan for using and publicizing the Time Use Survey and encouraging policy makers to make effective use of the data.

The second area aims to eliminate the social and economic penalties mothers incur for fulfilling their caregiving responsibilities. Those who perform significant unpaid caregiving work incur a disproportionate risk to their long term economic security, especially for those facing disability or old age. Mothers & More hopes to ensure that all mothers, fathers and others who care for their families, whether or not they work for pay, have access to basic public and private protections from economic risk. They will advocate that the value of unpaid caregiving work be considered and reflected in any reforms to retirement savings plans, Social Security and disability insurance.

Finally, Mothers & More aims to reshape paid workplaces in ways that acknowledge that anyone who needs to care for his or her family is holding down two jobs, both equally important to our economy and our society, and that they need more and better options for combining paid work with caregiving work. This will include educational efforts about how current tax policy affects family decisions and constrains the options available to parents for combining paid work and caregiving over their lifetimes. The organization also plans to support legislation at the state and federal levels that ensures proportional pay, benefits and advancement for part-time and contingent workers.

"Regardless of their level of participation in the paid workforce, mothers today face a set of cultural, social and economic obstacles to fulfilling their responsibilities to themselves and their children," says Maschka. "And almost all of these obstacles can be traced back to the devaluation of care. Although the devaluation of care hurts men, women and children at all income levels and has negative impacts on both our economy and the health of our society, mothers are the ones that pay the biggest price, so it is mothers who must speak up and make a difference."

Mothers & More is a non-profit organization that has been dedicated to improving the lives of mothers through support, education and advocacy for the last 15 years. With over 180 chapters and 7500 members, the organization is leading the charge toward a sustained national Mothers' Movement. To read the full POWER Plan and find out more about the issues affecting mothers and Mothers & More's Mother's Day Campaign efforts around the country, log onto the website at www.mothersandmore.org.

# # #