Introducing the Family and Home Network

Puzzling out the Spanish words on a poster in the town square, I was a bit started when I detected her behind me. I was carrying my five month old in a backpack, and the old woman held his foot in her hand as she spoke with a dramatic, pitying tone in Spanish, “Poor little one, with your cold feet.” Whoa, I thought, as I smiled uneasily and moved away-- what is this all about? It was 85 degrees and sunny. Duh. I finally realized this was just another of my mothering practices that seemed so odd (i.e. wrong) to the residents of this city in central Mexico. Almost every baby I saw was wrapped head to foot and carried by their mom in a reboza (a cloth wrap). There were few strollers to be seen, and it seemed that middle class babies stayed home with a maid/nanny when their moms went out.  

Living in Toluca for a few years and giving birth to our first child taught me a lot about cultural assumptions and child-rearing expectations. I was the recipient of much unsolicited advice and I ended up thinking hard about many of our parenting practices.   

Back in the U.S., I had more to learn. My husband was changing careers, working long hours with a long commute. I was home with our toddler and a new baby. These were the days before the internet, and I was hungry for contact with other mothers.  

My mother-in-law told me about a nonprofit organization that supported at-home mothers with a monthly printed journal. I became a volunteer and I’ve spent over two decades engaged in this work. Family and Home Network’s staff and volunteers are brought together by their commitment to the organization. But we have many different views about big things and about little things – education (public, private, homeschool), health care (immunizations, antiobiotic use, alternative medicine), food/nutrition, sleepovers, birthday parties, etc. We often find ourselves engaged in passionate discussions, learning about each other as well as about cultural attitudes and pressures on parents

My colleagues and I paid attention to media stories about mothers and families, and they were frequently appalling. Many media stories played on mothers’ fears, depicting mothers as polarized into two camps—at-home and “working.” The first time we came across the term “mommy wars” it was splashed across the cover of a popular women’s magazine. The feature illustration was a staged photograph of two women in boxing gloves facing off at the grocery store—one dressed in casual clothes, the other in a suit. Fortunately, that was years ago and most of the media has learned by now not to engage in that kind of outrageous sensationalism. Yet there are subjects that remain difficult to discuss (in case you’re wondering, I’ve read some of the DCUM forum discussions related to SAHM/WM issues but haven’t posted).

Family and Home Network was originally named Mothers at Home at its founding in 1984; we changed the name in 2001 to acknowledge the complexities of mothers’ lives, to discourage labeling mothers by their work/home choices—and to acknowledge and embrace fathers.  Thinking about families and public policy has been part of FAHN’s work for decades and it is our current focus. 

Last week, FAHN introduced its Campaign for Inclusive Family Policies. It calls on policymakers to adopt a basic principle of inclusion: Family policy should be inclusive—the ways in which parents meet their income-earning and caregiving responsibilities should not determine their eligibility for support and services. 

We are gathering feedback now, and I invite DCUMs to weigh in. You can read about the Campaign at our website, http://www.familyandhome.org/inclusivepolicies.htm and I welcome discussion in the comments here.

Cathy Myers
Executive Director, Family and Home Network
http://www.familyandhome.org