For parents like Christina Townsend, time with their newborn is short-lived. After taking a 12-week unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, Townsend had to return to teaching to support her family. In the United States, 25 percent of women are forced to return to work within two weeks of giving birth to pay bills and put food on the table.
“It’s so important to know that when moms struggle in this country, we often blame ourselves but once you understand the policies in this country, you start to realize that you’re trying to navigate a system that isn’t built for your mental or physical health,” Townsend said.
After starting work, Townsend needed childcare for her son, costing her 50 percent of her take-home pay, ultimately leading her to quit her teaching job. For the last two years, she worked from home as a part-time contractor, where she worked 10 hours a week and was able to care for her son without childcare costs.
“Childcare in this country is so expensive; in many states, it’s actually more expensive than college tuition,” Townsend said. “When we moved out to Denver, there was one childcare provider a few minutes from our home that had an opening but it cost $2000 a month, which would have been probably 60 percent of my take-home pay.”
The Chamber of Mothers is a nonprofit organization advocating for public policy solutions to improve the lives of mothers and families. Its primary focus is on three areas of change: paid family leave, affordable childcare and high-quality maternal health. Three Denver moms, Sarah Hughes, Lynne Petre and Christine Heitz, launched the Denver chapter this past June and are dedicating their time to building a community of mothers who are passionate about making change.Â
“We can bring moms together who, I think a lot of the time, are really individually passionate about making change on the issues but they don’t necessarily have a place to channel that energy,” Hughes said. “We are hoping that our local chapter can be a place for all of those passionate moms to come together and channel our passion, our energy and our desire for change together.”
On a national level, the organization is lobbying for the Expanding Child Care in Rural America initiative, which addresses childcare in agricultural and rural communities and removes some barriers for rural communities that would like to open childcare centers. They are currently supporting five bipartisan maternal bills and have built a community of 100,000 members who are ready to travel to Washington, D.C., to share their stories and raise awareness about policy issues.
“I can speak for moms everywhere when I say we’ll take any help that we can get when it comes to paying for childcare,” Hughes said.
Mothers like Hughes and Townsend are inspired to advocate for these issues because of personal experiences. Although Hughes was aware of the cost of childcare and the percentage of moms going back to work within two weeks from her previous employment in child and family policy, it wasn’t till she had her own children that she realized “how we fail to support moms in this country.”
“I think you don’t really realize how hard it’s going to be until you’re in it,” Hughes said. “It is really tough when the policies don’t really support you—it can feel really hard being a mom some days.”
Mothers also share their difficulty obtaining support for postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety. Finding support while caring for a newborn can become an overwhelming experience for many, especially when counseling or therapy is unfeasible. The Chamber of Mothers wants to utilize the stories of these mothers to fight for the policies that will help families across the country.
“We see ourselves as being a group that can sort of amplify those efforts,” Hughes said. “So if there is an organization in Colorado that’s working on childcare legislation, we have moms that are ready to come to the capital and testify and talk about how that bill would benefit their families and really just put a voice and a face to a lot of these issues that we know moms across the state are facing.”
At the end of her pregnancy, Townsend found out her mother had stage four lung cancer. Without paid family leave and her mother living four hours away, it was difficult for her and her family to care for her ill mother. Through the loss of her mom and the struggle of not being able to stay home with her son, Townsend began to share her story. Over the past years, she has shared her perspective with news outlets, at rallies and at a White House event where she met with representatives interested in addressing these issues.Â
“What started everything for me was an invitation to interview on the need for paid family leave,” Townsend said. “I almost said no because I had a 12-week-old infant, my husband was back at work, my mom had died less than 48 hours earlier and I was running on about 2-3 hours of sleep a night. We have to work together, ask for help, and challenge ourselves in order to get the policy change that we need for all moms to be supported. You never know what will happen from one yes.”
With the upcoming elections, the Chamber of Mothers supports an initiative called Vote Like a Mother. By texting MOTHER to 26797, mothers can register to vote, check their current registration status and access information on where different candidates stand on issues that affect moms. The Denver chapter doesn’t want to tell its members who to vote for; however, they do want their moms to get educated on the ballot measures and candidates that prioritize mental health, childcare and paid family leave.
“I think that moms and all parents need to come together to fight for these policies; we need to vote,” Townsend said. “We also need to work together to do things like write to our representatives, host meetings with representatives, share our stories, gather signatures on petitions and really launch coordinated efforts because nothing’s going to change unless we take action.”
To allow more mothers to join the organization, the Denver chapter has started monthly online meetings. Since the chapter was started this past June and is fairly new, the meetings have consisted of informing mothers what the organization does, highlighting its three pillars and planning actions they would like to take in these upcoming months. The chapter is also focusing on community outreach and tabling at events to build the movement of moms. They welcome any mothers who would like to join the movement to sign up on its website.
“We want people to know that if you’re struggling as a mom, you’re not alone,” Hughes said. “Being a mom is really hard, and it’s not because there’s anything wrong with us; it’s because the systems that are supposed to support us are not doing their job—so we hope that if people are struggling, they’ll see Chamber of Mothers as a place where they can come for community and to make the changes that would help us all be happier and healthier moms.”