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Every Mother is a Working Mother Network

c/o Crossroads Women’s Center


33 Maplewood Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19144
Mail to:
P.O. Box 11795
Philadelphia, PA 19101
215-848-1120; Fax: 215-848-1130
philly@allwomencount.net

STATEMENT OF EVERY MOTHER IS A WORKING MOTHER NETWORK


For Legal Momentum Briefing: “Punishing the Poor:
How Harsh and Unfair TANF Sanctions Are Hurting Our Poorest Families”
Thursday, September 30, 2010, Noon–1:30 p.m.
Cannon House Office Building
283 1st Street & Independence Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. | Room 122
My name is Pat Albright, and I am submitting this statement on behalf of Every Mother
is a Working Mother Network (EMWM), based in Philadelphia and part of a national
network. I am a former welfare recipient and single mother of a Black (bi-racial) son.
EMWM is multi-racial network of grassroots mothers, grandmothers and other
caregivers campaigning to establish that raising children and caring work is work, and to
change social and economic policies and practices so that the value of caring work is
reflected in the right to welfare and other resources. We would like to add our support
and perspectives to those who are speaking out today against sanctions, one of the
most cruel of the punitive measures which are part of TANF policy.

EMWM began in response to welfare reform which ignored the enormous amount of
work mothers do, in this instance mothers with the least. It ignored the importance of
the nurturing relationship and bonding between mothers and children and in so doing
made the case that mothers, instead of having the time and the support to care for our
own children, be forced to take any job outside the home and our children placed in the
care of strangers. This devalued the work of all mothers, in particular those with the
least resources, and demeaned the caring relationship between mother and child. It
treated our children like a nuisance that gets in the way of what is really important -- a
job outside the home. Our views reflect the reality of millions of mothers and other
caregivers whose contributions are devalued, and the thousands of low-income mothers
who are punished in welfare legislation for being mothers.

Our roots are in the welfare rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s and in the Wages
for Housework Campaign which has campaigned for recognition and payment for caring
work since 1972. We fought for and won a resolution in the Platform for Action of the
1977 US Conference on Women in Houston Texas (a conference mandated by
Congress) that opposed discrimination against mothers, and proposed that welfare be
called a wage. That resolution went to the Carter Administration to be implemented as
was its mandate, but it never was. We opposed the Family Support Act of the late
1980’s for all of the above stated reasons.

The International Wages for Housework Campaign coordinated the International


Women Count Network which succeeded in winning the decision at the 1995 UN World
Conference on Women in Beijing calling for women’s unwaged work in the home, on the
land and in the community to be measured and valued by governments in economic
statistics and in the Gross Domestic Product. And we worked to have introduced into
Congress The Unremunerated Work Act which called for unremunerated work to be
measured, valued and included in the gross domestic product. The Act, although never
voted on in Congress, had garnered bi-partisan support. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
has begun such measurements and valuations, however this data has not been
considered or used in determining policy as it relates to low income mothers or in a
whole host of policy decisions regarding resources for women, from social security to
the right to welfare.

The unwaged work women do in the US is valued at $1.5 trillion a year, and while
money is found for war and occupation where our children are trained to kill other
mothers’ children, we are denied the most basic survival resources for ourselves and
our children.

And this lack of valuing the work of mothers and other caregivers, and denying us
resources, has a devastating impact on communities of color. Statistics bear out that
Black families are largely headed by women. And immigration policies all too often
separate families leaving mothers alone to fend for their children. But all women are
hampered by a lack of pay equity, low wages, part time work which offer no benefits,
and job insecurity. With cuts in homecare and lack of access to healthcare when our
loved ones become ill or elderly or return from war with mental and physical wounds,
women are counted on to do the unwaged caregiving work not provided by
governments. Thus women are forced to do a double or even triple day of low-waged
work on top of unwaged caring work.

Mothers need an income, just like anyone else, for us and for our loved ones to survive,
but mothers are not like other workers in that our work remains counted on, and given
lip service to, but not resources. Policy makers must stop hiding the contributions
mothers and other unwaged and low-waged caregivers make to society, and stop
attacking mothers with the least in the most racist and vicious ways. Families in rural
areas, including on Native American lands, where jobs are few and far between are
particularly at risk. For many mothers our source of survival is welfare.

One of the results of current welfare policies, including sanctions, is the alarming rate at
which children are being removed from their homes by “child welfare” departments.
Increasingly we see the conflation of poverty, racism and neglect with a
disproportionately high number of Black and other children of color being taken from
families and placed into foster care with strangers or put up for adoption. Mothers are
being threatened that their children will be taken by child protective services if they
apply for welfare, a diversionary tactic used to keep the rolls down. Mothers on welfare
are afraid to seek help in domestic violence situations through the Family Violence
Option for fear that their children will be taken. Mothers struggling to get their children
back from foster care cannot get welfare because their children are not with them, and
the children cannot come home because their mother has no income, a catch-22
situation. The housing requirements for mothers to be able to get their children back
who have been detained by children and family services departments are discriminatory
against low income mothers. And grandmothers caring for grandchildren do not get the
support they need.

Rather than supporting mothers and children, welfare funds are now going to child
welfare services, tearing up families and dealing a traumatizing blow to children.
Studies show that children in foster care with non-family members have twice the rate of
PTSD as Gulf War veterans. One third say they have experienced sexual abuse by
adults in foster care. And only 20 percent of foster care “alumni” could be said to be
“doing well”.

We are outraged that especially - but not only - during this economic crisis mothers are
being denied welfare as a right, and frankly denied money directly into our hands so that
we can care for our families. Indeed the number of women receiving welfare has
dropped dramatically in contrast for example to those receiving food stamps. Why is it
that foster parents are paid in the realm of $35,000 for the care of children when no
money can be found to help the mothers?

Lawmakers seem to have forgotten that without mothers, none of them would be here.
The work of bearing and raising children is the most important work in society, but it is
treated like it is worth nothing, and that we can somehow make do without it. For them,
the “real” work, the important work is the work for wages outside the home. Well, there
is very little of that around these days, and even if we can find a job, what about the
children – who will raise them? Who will care for their needs when they have
disabilities? Welfare policies treat children like so many sacks of potatoes that can be
parked at one childcare center or another, completely devaluing the importance of the
maternal bond on the child’s development and well-being. All child psychologists agree
on the importance of consistent care especially in the first three years. The American
Pediatric Association has recommended breastfeeding for the first year. Experts of all
kinds point out the value of investing in the first six years of life as a preventive measure
for problems later in life. But welfare policy in the US has continued to tear mothers
from children at a young age, pushing us into a job, any job – then pay someone else to
look after our children!

While paying lip service to motherhood and apple pie, the US is the only industrial
nation that does NOT have some kind of program to pay mothers. In countries of the
Global North, with the exception of the US, mothers are entitled to family allowance,
whether they are married or not, whether they are working outside the home or not; the
money comes to the mother, and there is no means test or stigma attached to it as
there is with welfare. Also in countries of the Global North again with the notable
exception of the US, mothers (and fathers) are entitled to paid parental leave that can
be close to the amount they earned while working. How can it be that the wealthiest
country in the world cannot “afford” it?

In June of this year, the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network participated in the
US Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, which passed unanimously a resolution entitled
“Poverty is Not Neglect and We are Not Powerless: Mothers reclaim our children back
from the child welfare industry” calling for an end to time limits, sanctions and other
punitive measures including “work” requirements in welfare reform, as well as an
increase in benefit levels, as TANF moves through its reauthorization process in
Congress, and to make welfare available immediately to all women who need it
including for their children to be returned to them.

It is unconscionable that sanctions are imposed when we fail to jump through the
bureaucratic hoops imposed by a cruel and demeaning system. Frequently it is
mistakes of the bureaucracy itself that are the cause of our “non-compliance”. We
remind lawmakers that it is children in the end who suffer the most by such sanctions
and other punitive policies. All mothers, including those of us fighting to reunite our
families, have earned support. We have a right to money, resources and other
programs that value our work. And the value of our caring work must be reflected in
welfare policy.

(For further information, contact Pat Albright, pat@allwomencount.net, 267-254-4467)

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