Column: Mamas Caucus wants to make Illinois the most mom-friendly state in the nation. ‘Who better to advocate for us than us?’
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Josina Morita was the first commissioner on Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to have a baby while in office and was told, at one point, to use an empty tech support office when she needed to pump breastmilk.
State Rep. Margaret Croke had a 2-month-old son during the 12th House District primary race and brought her son to work every day because Illinois, unlike several other states, doesn’t consider child care an allowable campaign expense.
“That was cute and all when he was 2 months old,” Croke said. “But now he’s 18 months old and he doesn’t stop moving. The barrier to be a public servant is that you have to be able to afford a full-time household employee, and that’s crazy.”
City Clerk Anna Valencia had a baby during the pandemic. She said she struggled with the isolation and fear that so many new parents experienced in 2020, even as she watched her friends and constituents get pushed out of a workforce that wasn’t prepared to support working mothers during a global crisis.
City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is raising a 4-year-old daughter. “On the West Side of Chicago,” she said. “Even more reason to fight for equity for working families, especially working mothers.”
The four women have joined forces, along with 18 other bipartisan elected officials — aldermen, county commissioners, state representatives — to form an Illinois Mamas Caucus. Their goal is to turn Illinois into the most mom-friendly state in the nation, through policies that support working families, protect female and maternal health, provide high-quality public education and make it easier for women to run for elected office.
“Women, especially mothers, are the ones who don’t crack under pressure,” Conyears-Ervin said. “We know how to have the baby on one hip and stand up to the microphone on the House floor, Senate floor, talk about our legislation, nurse our babies on Zoom calls, you name it. That’s why we’re doing this. Is it difficult? Yes. Do we have time for it? No. But it is so very important.”
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The founding members of the Mamas Caucus are hosting a virtual town hall, where they’re inviting the public to share their stories of living and working and parenting through a pandemic.
“So many of the things we were always told were impossible — it’s impossible to work remotely, it’s impossible to have flextime, it’s impossible to do all these things — the pandemic created a whole new normal,” Morita said. “Some things we were able to prove are possible, we hope to hold onto. Part of what we want to talk about in this town hall is, ‘What is it going to take, right now, to help keep you in the workforce? What supports do you need right now? How do we help you fight for these? How do we take some of these temporary changes and make them permanent? How do we use this time as a way to build a more mama-friendly economy and a more mama-friendly set of policies?’ So when we talk about a mama recovery, hopefully that recovery becomes a new normal in a good way for moms in the workforce.”
You can RSVP for the virtual town hall at www.mamascaucus.org. It’s scheduled for 1-2:30 p.m. May 1 and will be broken into four discussion topics: employment, child care, schools and self-care.
Morita, who chairs the Mamas Caucus, said city and state government bodies are undergoing a substantial shift in who sets policy.
“There are a lot of women in the General Assembly and City Council who are moms, but their kids are older, out of the house, in college,” said Morita, whose children are 1 and 2. “This is the first time we’ve had a group of young moms in legislative office, and we all kind of found each other and supported each other on the campaign trail and while we’re serving.”
With that shift, Morita said, is an increased visibility for the actual work of mothering.
“We’re taking our kids to events,” Morita said. “We’re campaigning with babies in Björns on our chest. There’s just a visibility and a pushing through that space right now to make it the norm. If we’re not there, things aren’t changing.”
Conyears-Ervin talked about successfully sponsoring 2018 legislation to require lactation rooms at the Illinois State Capitol building when she was serving as a state representative for the 10th District and co-chair of the Illinois House Democratic Women’s Caucus.
“Who better to advocate for us than us?” Conyears-Ervin said.
Valencia said the Mamas Caucus feels particularly urgent in light of the number of women who left the workplace during the pandemic. Women accounted for 55% of the 2020 job losses, according to the National Women’s Law Project. Immigrant women and mothers — particularly Black mothers — bore the brunt of the job losses.
“Those statistics are real people,” Valencia said. “They’re our constituents. They’re our friends. They’re our sisters. There’s no reason we can’t be pushing progressive policies here at City Hall and on a state level, advocating for working moms.”
Morita said she doesn’t know of any other states with a Mamas Caucus, making this endeavor both groundbreaking and untested.
“We have no idea what to expect, in terms of the town hall and how many people will show up,” Morita said. “I think this is one of those examples, ‘If you build it they will come.’”
I hope May 1 proves her right. The surest solutions, the ones that serve the most people and have the best shot at effecting lasting change, come from a plurality of voices with a diversity of backgrounds.
“We always say, if mamas can’t figure it out across the aisle,” Morita said, “if mamas can’t figure it out across the state, then nobody can. So we’re excited to try.”
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