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	a quiet place by peggy o'mara

A Lantern For Lorri
Issue 128

In issue 119, I wrote an editorial, “Gathering the Mothers,” about what I sense is a burgeoning mothers’ movement in the US. In the editorial, I mentioned many of the organizations advocating for the concerns of mothers, including the National Association of Mothers’ Centers (NAMC). As a result of this editorial, I was invited to participate in a panel at the 2004 NAMC conference last November. The panel, “Voices of Today’s Mothers’ Movement,” also included Enola Aird, founder and director of the Motherhood Project; Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood and a founder of the Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights (MOTHERS) initiative; and Judith Stadtman Tucker, founder and editor of the Mothers Movement Online. While we each offered a different perspective on the idea of a mothers’ movement, we were all in agreement that one was needed.

What does it mean to say that there is a mothers’ movement afoot? Does it mean that women will develop a new consciousness about themselves as mothers? Does it mean that the voices of mothers will be heard more often in the national conversation? Does it mean that mothers will work together to advocate for social change? Yes, a mothers’ movement can mean all of the above.

Will a mothers’ movement be something centralized, based on the collective action of many individuals and groups working for one goal? Does it already exist in a nascent form, as something decentralized that informs the work of the many mothers’ organizations working independent of but complementary to each other? True to a feminine model, I suspect a mothers’ movement will be amorphous, hatching and flying off in many directions but aimed at one thing: that the voices of mothers be heard.

A mothers’ movement is a movement toward social justice for mothers, children, and families. What historical perspective can guide us in a mothers’ movement? Is such a movement possible? Author and environmentalist Paul Hawken puts us in good company. He reports that nearly 200,000 groups—more groups than at any other time in history—are working worldwide for social justice. He predicts that “we the people” are the next superpower.

We can also look for guidance at the history of feminism, particularly at what has been called maternal feminism. The efforts of early feminists focused not only on the right to vote but also on larger issues of social justice, such as violence in the home and alcoholism. A mothers’ movement also draws on the traditions of faith communities that work for social justice; the Catholic Worker movement, founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, is an example. And our movement is inspired, as are all social justice movements, by the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.

What does the idea of a mothers’ movement mean to our personal lives? While we may not think of our everyday struggles as mothers as part of a larger movement for social justice, they are. Even so, those of us with young children can rightly feel overwhelmed by the prospect of any responsibilities beyond these everyday struggles. For those of us with older children, however, the timing could
be just right for more involvement in the political scene. A mothers’ movement implies that more action will be required, but what really will be needed is more consciousness.

When I think of a mothers’ movement, I don’t think of only one organizing group or one cause. I think of a vast array of networks, a web of organizations working to increase awareness and to influence social change. All parts of the web are important, just as all kinds of social action are important. A mothers’ movement is really about finding and expressing your voice as a mother. Here are some actions you can take to feel part of a mothers’ movement. Some take only a little time, but their results are long-lasting. Others are easier to accomplish when children are older. All are valuable. You can perform them in sequence or just pick and choose.

See your mothering as a political act. The way you talk to your child becomes his or her inner voice. The way you model acceptance of your own body becomes the way your daughter learns to accept hers. The way you model the distribution of chores in the household provides a blueprint for your children’s marriages. Bringing consciousness and awareness to the small acts of your life with your family can change the world. Your mothering is enough.

If you feel you have time for more and want support for yourself as a mother, have conversations with other mothers. Talk on the phone. Get together informally. Don’t underestimate the importance of getting perspective on your own life by sharing common concerns with other mothers.

You may want to formalize your conversations with other mothers by joining or starting a group for mothers in your area. When I was a young mom, I found a family of support in my La Leche League (LLL) group. Today, in addition to LLL, mothers can join groups through the National Association of Mothers’ Centers, Holistic Moms Network, Mothers’ Support Network, Parents Support Network, Families for Natural Living, and Attachment Parenting International.

Some mothers’ groups have started physical centers in their towns. Natural Resources in San Francisco and Mothers’ Support Network in Sacramento are two examples of mothers’ centers that offer retail products, both to bring in funds and to provide more services to parents. Turning your group into a mothers’ center with a physical location can be challenging, but the process may be attractive to moms with an entrepreneurial spirit or business expertise.

Write letters to the editor. This may sound simple, but it is a great way to bring important issues to the attention of your community. The practice of writing letters improves your ability to make an argument and to articulate your thoughts on important issues. It is also something you can do with a baby. I started as a writer by writing letters to the editor of our local paper in Alamogordo, New Mexico, when I was a new mom.

Get involved in advocacy groups that support your favorite causes. Go to the meetings of political parties in your area. Find out how things happen, how bills are passed, what groups have influence. Bring your school-age children to visit your state legislature.

Educate yourself about the political process. Visit your state and US representatives at their offices in your town and develop a relationship with one of their staffers. Think about an issue of importance to you, an issue that impacts your family and families like yours. Educate yourself about the issue and ask for your representative’s help in working on it.

Run for office. You may not want to think about this until your kids are older, at which point it may be the perfect thing to do. With all your experience as a manager at home, you are quite qualified for the multitasking involved with legislative work.

Strike a balance between shoring up your own family life and contributing to society as a whole. If a mothers’ movement is about hearing the voices of mothers, those voices will be varied and distinct. In fact, I think the surprise of a mothers’ movement could be that it wouldn’t look like one thing. It would not be easy to pin down and easily dismiss. It would have many leaders.

As mothers, we think that our concerns are the concerns of the many. We have to make sure that they are. As mothers, we hope that our children are protected by society. We have to act when they are not. As mothers, we have authoritative knowledge about our own experience, an experience we have in common with millions of women. We can build a more just society on the ground of this common experience.

Our common experience as mothers, however, does not guarantee that we will agree on everything. That doesn’t matter. We may have differences of opinion about abortion, for example, but may agree that all children should have access to health care. We may disagree about gun ownership, for example, but agree that special interests should not dominate politics. And while we may be of different faiths and spiritual practices, we would certainly agree that all families in the US should have adequate shelter and enough to eat.

The values of a just society do not belong to any political party. They are the values of the people. It is my fervent hope that we women, as mothers, will have the courage and equanimity to give one another reciprocal liberty, mutual accommodation. A mothers’ movement perhaps could be based not so much on our shared values as on indifference to our unshared values.

When we look at the challenges that any organized effort requires, it seems to me that overlooking our differences in favor of our common ground will help us circumvent the challenges we will face as a social movement. Can we give one another this kind of wide berth in a mothers’ movement? Can we be cooperative rather than competitive? Can we overlook our differences?

What kind of dynamics and leadership do we need? We need the dynamics of migrating geese. These wise birds have a variety of leaders, and when one tires another takes the lead. We need the causes of many mothers, not of one. We are strong in our diversity.

Regarding diversity, how do we broaden participation in a mothers’ movement? How does it move from elite intellectualism to arguments that mothers from all walks of life can relate to? What are the mechanisms by which we include more diverse populations of mothers in a mothers’ movement?

And with so many diverse populations of mothers involved, how do we overcome fragmentation? Or do we? The beauty of our movement is that it is made up of many different groups with many different goals. How can we come together when necessary for common goals without losing our individual identities and particular concerns?

In what is loosely called the mothers’ movement, there can be no progress in polarized positions. Social change will be produced not by moral revelation but by shared experiences. The secret to our success will be in forging unexpected alliances.

When I went to the NAMC meeting, I hoped to make alliances with other individuals and organizations. As a magazine, Mothering can help foster the agendas of diverse groups by letting our readers and website viewers know about them. We put up weekly activism alerts for nonprofit advocacy groups. As an editor, I want to provide a clearinghouse of information for mothers. And as a mother, I pray we will all get along. Society needs our voice—voices of compassion, of empathy, of mediation—now.

At the conference, NAMC cofounder Lorri Slepian and I talked about wanting to peer into the future of the mothers’ movement so that we could foster its development. I realize now that we do not have to see the way to take the steps. We can trust that we are serving a larger purpose, a purpose that may not be fulfilled in one generation. Nonetheless, it is a purpose worthy of our efforts. It is time now for women to save the world. We need to hear the voices of mothers. Mothers’ common experiences of making ends meet, seeing all sides of the story, and cultivating optimism can help us all right now.