FOR MOTHERS, IT’S ABOUT TIME

Mothers & More launches campaign drawing attention to expectations of how mothers “should” spend their time and what mothers can do about it.  

ELMHURST, IL – Mothers & More, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of mothers, today launches its 3 rd annual Mother’s Day Campaign titled “Mothers - The Real Story. It’s About Time.”

From special meetings to library displays to blogs, members across the country will be hosting awareness activities through the end of May. The events aim to:

• Spotlight that all mothers (and anyone who cares for others) face challenges as a result of making time to care,
• Highlight that the unpaid care work that is done mostly by mothers takes time and has real social and economic value, and
• Encourage mothers to talk with each other about their real life experiences as mothers because together, mothers are powerful.

“Mothers have been culturally assigned the responsibility of unpaid care work,” says Joanne Brundage, founder and Executive Director of Mothers & More. “Yet this work is often invisible, leading to a lack of acknowledgement of the real time, effort and risk mothers take on when they shoulder the responsibility of caring for family.”

Indeed, the statistics are against mothers. In families with children under the age of six years, mothers spend more than twice the time fathers spend caring for children, regardless of their paid employment status. Only 35% of married women in this group are employed full-time, full year, yet part-time workers make 20% less per hour than full-time workers for doing the same work, and typically receive few or no benefits. The time mothers spend out of the workforce directly contributes to mothers being the most likely group to live in poverty in old age.

“There has been growing recognition in the past few years that the cards are stacked against mothers – through the limited options to combine work and family, in the unrealistic volume of activities mothers ‘should’ take on to enrich their children, in the necessity to be both the ideal worker and a ‘good’ mother, and in the expectation that all these things should be done only by the mother,” says Kristin Maschka, President of Mothers & More. “But these unrealistic societal expectations, along with the unpredictability, invisibility and inevitable fragmentation of time that caregiving requires leads to feelings of inadequacy, guilt and resentment. Couple that with the real economic danger mothers are put in, and it’s clear that it’s time for mothers to come together.”

Mothers & More believes that mothers coming together in open and honest conversations about the challenges they face when it comes to the time required to care can spark real change. Once the prevalence of mothers’ difficulties are realized, it will become clear to mothers and others that more options are needed for individuals to fit the time to care into their lives. It will be natural that the responsibility to spend time caring for families be treated as a responsibility we all share individually and together. And mothers will be empowered to insist that time spent caring for families is never a reason for someone to face financial insecurity, barriers to employment or the expectation that personal dreams and potential be sidelined.

Mothers & More is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of mothers through support, education and advocacy. They address mothers’ needs as individuals and members of society and promote the value of all the work mothers do. With 7000 members across the country, the organization has been supporting and advocating for mothers for over 17 years. For more information, log onto the website at www.mothersandmore.org

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For more information contact:
Deidre Zapata
publicrelations@mothersandmore.org