Today, the administration issued a proclamation on Black Maternal Health Week. It noted that Black American mothers die from pregnancy-related complications at two to three times the rates of White, Hispanic, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women, no matter what their income or education levels. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris declared their commitment to “building a health care system that delivers equity and dignity to Black, Indigenous, and other women and girls of color.”
It's remarkable how President Biden is exceeding the expectations of even his supporters. Compared to Trump, he was always going to do a good job. But Biden must be maddening to the Republicans. Not just his aggressive agenda that is anathema to the do-nothing-but-cut-taxes GOP, but his low-key empathetic leadership. It's a daunting PR challenge to effectively attack a president whose major policy proposals are supported by significant majorities of the American people.
We must remind ourselves daily that the legislative progress achieved so far and more ahead wouldn't be possible without the outcome of Georgia's two Senate races. So much more needs to be done. But everything hinges on the next round of elections in 2022 and overcoming a party hell-bent on suppressing voting.
For the longest time I have lamented the lack of public will to support child welfare programs. The media sensationalizes the worst events of child deaths, and even ostensible investigative journalism seems more like a reporter’s quest for a Pulitzer than on bringing problems to light in order to help make things better. A journalist might include a statement about agencies that are understaffed and have high caseloads, but what’s to be done about that? Nothing.
In my lamenting, I have appreciated the various prevention programs, starting with early childhood education. Substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse perpetrated by adults invariably reveal antecedents in parents’ own life experiences, going back to their own childhoods. Intergenerational child abuse and neglect is particularly heart-breaking. Well, it’s all heart-breaking. But at least the power of state legislations, backed by federal programs such as Medicare, SNAP, SSDI, KinGAP, Adoptions Assistance Program, and Indian Child Welfare Act, provide the authority to intervene for the protection of children while affording parents due process in court, which if finding cause, issues family maintenance or reunification orders for counseling and parent education to fix the presenting problem.
Dr. Richardson’s citation of Ms Magazine points out that the American Rescue Plan Act only “restored a baseline that will help more than 60 percent of the child care programs in the United States…Many parents, especially mothers, will be able to return to their jobs, paving the way for a just and equitable economic recovery.”
I’m a glass-half-full person, but this childcare glass is still 40 percent empty. We’ll take what we can for now, but we need to keep advocating for more than even restoration to the 100 percent level because that is NOT SUFFICIENT.
What to do about substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse? Education based interventions really work—not at all perfectly, but overall, significantly, to help families get to a better place, even as this is far down the line of a person’s openness to new learning.
In the bigger scheme of things, the earlier, the better. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is real. From infancy, security grown from having basic needs met matters. Food security (quality nutrition, not just quantity), safe housing, sufficient sleep, and freedom from violence matter. On the other hand, prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol and childhood exposure to abuse, chronic neglect, and/or violence cause trauma that often has lasting detrimental effects on child development, including hypervigilance, learning disabilities, and deleterious acting out behaviors—like repeating what they saw the grown-ups do or what the grown-ups did to them. And so the cycle continues to the next generation.
By the way, these issues are not limited to poor, marginalized families. These issues are also prevalent in wealthy families where children can still be emotionally neglected and grown with a toxic mix of entitlement, thrill-seeking, and lack of responsibility.
HCR readers often have asked what can we do—about trumpers, QAnon, insurrectionists, far right Evangelical Christians, white supremacists—and the answer comes down to early education. HCR herself has said we can change a society in 20 years, which is the time it takes to raise a new generation. Education means attending to how and what children learn both at home and in school—and more and more, in the media.
How: At home, learning by example, the example set by parents and meaningful adults, is the single most powerful method of teaching.
What: Teach children critical thinking skills. Respect authority and question authority. Both/and paradigm, not just either/or. Grow intellectual curiosity and empathy. Pride and humility. Learn self-reflection and taking responsibility. Conflict management, redirection, and de-escalation. Civics education. Financial literacy. Respect differences, and step up anti-racism, advocacy, and being an ally. Have moral courage. Learn how to listen. Walk your talk about equal opportunity and RESPECT for women, LGBTQ, people of color, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees, differently abled people, and people who don’t have a lot of wealth.
All this starts with supporting families, however they are structured, and having quality education starting with childcare as needed.
Biden and the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act only restored 60 percent of childcare programs. That's quantity. Quality? Pay more than minimum wage for childcare workers? Pay for teachers and school programs and higher education for our children to learn all those critical thinking skills and civic responsibility? We still have a long way to go.
Casting a vote is no longer a guaranteed way to make our wishes known to our elected representatives. The Republican agenda of the past 40 years, backed by dark money, is in full force in state legislatures across the country to restrict voting so as to manipulate minority Republican numbers to have power over the majority of the people.
Make your voice heard to oppose voter suppression bills and to support voter expansion bills.
Most importantly, make your voice heard to support HR1/S1 For the People Act to ensure voting rights, end gerrymandering, reform campaign finance, and reform ethics in all three branches of government. Even moderate Republicans like hearing about getting billionaires out of politics.
HR1/S1 is the necessary foundation for passing subsequent progressive, humanistic legislation to both make this world a better place in the here and now, and to grow our children to become good citizens of the future.
For all our differences in this group of HCR Substackers, we have amazing brain power and big hearts. Turn our good words into good action.
If one opposes abortion and government-sponsored birth control/sex education, then one must support Biden's initiatives to lift families out of poverty.
If people wish, through government regulations, to deny a woman an abortion, then those people are obligated, through government programs, to see that the child is born into a long-term, stable, healthy, nurturing environment. Period.
As Cathy Learoyd states below, Biden is defining, and acting on, what "pro-life" really means.
So, the question to put to Republicans opposing Biden's "family infrastructure" plans is, "But sir/madame, aren't you pro-life?"
It strikes me that Pres. Biden's focus on helping women and children is akin to efforts made by development aid organizations in developing countries. They often say that if you help the women, you develop the whole of society. Just food for thought.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that Biden and Harris are not channeling either FDR or HST, but they ARE channeling ELEANOR Roosevelt? Eleanor argued with FDR about segregation. She insisted on having Marion Anderson and Paul Robson perform at the White House. She served as the first US Chair to the UN House of Delegates (this was before they achieved ambassadorial rank) and was instrumental (I think--not checking sources here) in the establishing of UNICEF. Eleanor was the moral center behind FDR's administration and she became Truman's moral barometer as well.
As I know firsthand, a mother in poverty means children in poverty. That is great news that Biden and Harris are supporting families in a real way! The nuclear family is a small percentage of reality. It’s a travesty that children in America live in poverty and food insecure. We need an original determined administration to get us out of our societal mess! So glad this administration gets it! Now let’s go for equal pay!
Finally! I don’t think many people realize just how much of a struggle women go through. I’m a single, college educated woman, making the top end pay of my chosen profession. I’m struggling to pay the rent every month on my 500sf studio apartment. I make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to actually survive. My coworker is a single mother. Amazing woman. I was helping her this week try to find summer child care for the first time, as her child is in kindergarten. The cheapest we could find was $250/week! That’s $1000/month. Does she have that? No. The times it was open was 8-5. We work 730-530. How is that going to work?! I looked up getting assistance for her in relation to the new Rescue Plan. She doesn’t qualify. Makes a couple thousand more a year than the cut off. She literally broke down crying in the middle of work. She does not deserve this struggle just because she chose to leave her husband who was sleeping with his secretary. I don’t know how to help her. And all of the others out there. Help them right now.
This is one of the most optimistic and heartening Letters I have yet read here. These thoughts accurately describe the America I believe in, and hope we can be. Thank you!
I have generally found that when women are put in positions of power, fewer people are left behind. This is true in my personal and community life, business, and politics. There are many reasons for this but I believe the power of empathy is likely the strongest.
This letter brought such joy to my heart. The nights and days of grieving I live in a society that does not prioritize children and mothers. How do you sleep at night knowing our children are Hungry, live in environments without the basics : clean water, heat, clothing, transportation, internet, and security. We wonder why we have mental health issues ? The poverty the woman and children live in this country is unconscionable. This is the best news I have heard that Biden and Harris are focusing on this. Just imagine the peace we could feel if our country did not have such economic disparity and we took care of our vulnerable children.
They have to prioritize right now. Without the voting rights acts, all this happy news will be history soon. Every day they don't force voting rights is another day one Democratic senator might fall ill or be incapacitated and all hope lost, and that's especially true for Black voters. The only Biden story needs to be voting rights until that is fixed, I think.
It's remarkable how President Biden is exceeding the expectations of even his supporters. Compared to Trump, he was always going to do a good job. But Biden must be maddening to the Republicans. Not just his aggressive agenda that is anathema to the do-nothing-but-cut-taxes GOP, but his low-key empathetic leadership. It's a daunting PR challenge to effectively attack a president whose major policy proposals are supported by significant majorities of the American people.
We must remind ourselves daily that the legislative progress achieved so far and more ahead wouldn't be possible without the outcome of Georgia's two Senate races. So much more needs to be done. But everything hinges on the next round of elections in 2022 and overcoming a party hell-bent on suppressing voting.
For the longest time I have lamented the lack of public will to support child welfare programs. The media sensationalizes the worst events of child deaths, and even ostensible investigative journalism seems more like a reporter’s quest for a Pulitzer than on bringing problems to light in order to help make things better. A journalist might include a statement about agencies that are understaffed and have high caseloads, but what’s to be done about that? Nothing.
In my lamenting, I have appreciated the various prevention programs, starting with early childhood education. Substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse perpetrated by adults invariably reveal antecedents in parents’ own life experiences, going back to their own childhoods. Intergenerational child abuse and neglect is particularly heart-breaking. Well, it’s all heart-breaking. But at least the power of state legislations, backed by federal programs such as Medicare, SNAP, SSDI, KinGAP, Adoptions Assistance Program, and Indian Child Welfare Act, provide the authority to intervene for the protection of children while affording parents due process in court, which if finding cause, issues family maintenance or reunification orders for counseling and parent education to fix the presenting problem.
Dr. Richardson’s citation of Ms Magazine points out that the American Rescue Plan Act only “restored a baseline that will help more than 60 percent of the child care programs in the United States…Many parents, especially mothers, will be able to return to their jobs, paving the way for a just and equitable economic recovery.”
I’m a glass-half-full person, but this childcare glass is still 40 percent empty. We’ll take what we can for now, but we need to keep advocating for more than even restoration to the 100 percent level because that is NOT SUFFICIENT.
What to do about substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse? Education based interventions really work—not at all perfectly, but overall, significantly, to help families get to a better place, even as this is far down the line of a person’s openness to new learning.
In the bigger scheme of things, the earlier, the better. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is real. From infancy, security grown from having basic needs met matters. Food security (quality nutrition, not just quantity), safe housing, sufficient sleep, and freedom from violence matter. On the other hand, prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol and childhood exposure to abuse, chronic neglect, and/or violence cause trauma that often has lasting detrimental effects on child development, including hypervigilance, learning disabilities, and deleterious acting out behaviors—like repeating what they saw the grown-ups do or what the grown-ups did to them. And so the cycle continues to the next generation.
By the way, these issues are not limited to poor, marginalized families. These issues are also prevalent in wealthy families where children can still be emotionally neglected and grown with a toxic mix of entitlement, thrill-seeking, and lack of responsibility.
HCR readers often have asked what can we do—about trumpers, QAnon, insurrectionists, far right Evangelical Christians, white supremacists—and the answer comes down to early education. HCR herself has said we can change a society in 20 years, which is the time it takes to raise a new generation. Education means attending to how and what children learn both at home and in school—and more and more, in the media.
How: At home, learning by example, the example set by parents and meaningful adults, is the single most powerful method of teaching.
What: Teach children critical thinking skills. Respect authority and question authority. Both/and paradigm, not just either/or. Grow intellectual curiosity and empathy. Pride and humility. Learn self-reflection and taking responsibility. Conflict management, redirection, and de-escalation. Civics education. Financial literacy. Respect differences, and step up anti-racism, advocacy, and being an ally. Have moral courage. Learn how to listen. Walk your talk about equal opportunity and RESPECT for women, LGBTQ, people of color, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees, differently abled people, and people who don’t have a lot of wealth.
All this starts with supporting families, however they are structured, and having quality education starting with childcare as needed.
Biden and the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act only restored 60 percent of childcare programs. That's quantity. Quality? Pay more than minimum wage for childcare workers? Pay for teachers and school programs and higher education for our children to learn all those critical thinking skills and civic responsibility? We still have a long way to go.
Casting a vote is no longer a guaranteed way to make our wishes known to our elected representatives. The Republican agenda of the past 40 years, backed by dark money, is in full force in state legislatures across the country to restrict voting so as to manipulate minority Republican numbers to have power over the majority of the people.
Make your voice heard to oppose voter suppression bills and to support voter expansion bills.
Most importantly, make your voice heard to support HR1/S1 For the People Act to ensure voting rights, end gerrymandering, reform campaign finance, and reform ethics in all three branches of government. Even moderate Republicans like hearing about getting billionaires out of politics.
HR1/S1 is the necessary foundation for passing subsequent progressive, humanistic legislation to both make this world a better place in the here and now, and to grow our children to become good citizens of the future.
For all our differences in this group of HCR Substackers, we have amazing brain power and big hearts. Turn our good words into good action.
This is what pro-life should mean.
If one opposes abortion and government-sponsored birth control/sex education, then one must support Biden's initiatives to lift families out of poverty.
If people wish, through government regulations, to deny a woman an abortion, then those people are obligated, through government programs, to see that the child is born into a long-term, stable, healthy, nurturing environment. Period.
As Cathy Learoyd states below, Biden is defining, and acting on, what "pro-life" really means.
So, the question to put to Republicans opposing Biden's "family infrastructure" plans is, "But sir/madame, aren't you pro-life?"
It strikes me that Pres. Biden's focus on helping women and children is akin to efforts made by development aid organizations in developing countries. They often say that if you help the women, you develop the whole of society. Just food for thought.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that Biden and Harris are not channeling either FDR or HST, but they ARE channeling ELEANOR Roosevelt? Eleanor argued with FDR about segregation. She insisted on having Marion Anderson and Paul Robson perform at the White House. She served as the first US Chair to the UN House of Delegates (this was before they achieved ambassadorial rank) and was instrumental (I think--not checking sources here) in the establishing of UNICEF. Eleanor was the moral center behind FDR's administration and she became Truman's moral barometer as well.
As I know firsthand, a mother in poverty means children in poverty. That is great news that Biden and Harris are supporting families in a real way! The nuclear family is a small percentage of reality. It’s a travesty that children in America live in poverty and food insecure. We need an original determined administration to get us out of our societal mess! So glad this administration gets it! Now let’s go for equal pay!
Thanks Heather!
finally, a commander in chief who honors the law of the sea: Women and children first.
Finally! I don’t think many people realize just how much of a struggle women go through. I’m a single, college educated woman, making the top end pay of my chosen profession. I’m struggling to pay the rent every month on my 500sf studio apartment. I make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to actually survive. My coworker is a single mother. Amazing woman. I was helping her this week try to find summer child care for the first time, as her child is in kindergarten. The cheapest we could find was $250/week! That’s $1000/month. Does she have that? No. The times it was open was 8-5. We work 730-530. How is that going to work?! I looked up getting assistance for her in relation to the new Rescue Plan. She doesn’t qualify. Makes a couple thousand more a year than the cut off. She literally broke down crying in the middle of work. She does not deserve this struggle just because she chose to leave her husband who was sleeping with his secretary. I don’t know how to help her. And all of the others out there. Help them right now.
This is one of the most optimistic and heartening Letters I have yet read here. These thoughts accurately describe the America I believe in, and hope we can be. Thank you!
I have generally found that when women are put in positions of power, fewer people are left behind. This is true in my personal and community life, business, and politics. There are many reasons for this but I believe the power of empathy is likely the strongest.
Women and children first, instead of rich old white guys. Now there's a concept. Let's have more, please!
This column is a good example of why I read Heather's letters first thing in the morning. Heather writes in 3-D.
This letter brought such joy to my heart. The nights and days of grieving I live in a society that does not prioritize children and mothers. How do you sleep at night knowing our children are Hungry, live in environments without the basics : clean water, heat, clothing, transportation, internet, and security. We wonder why we have mental health issues ? The poverty the woman and children live in this country is unconscionable. This is the best news I have heard that Biden and Harris are focusing on this. Just imagine the peace we could feel if our country did not have such economic disparity and we took care of our vulnerable children.
Boom. 💕
They have to prioritize right now. Without the voting rights acts, all this happy news will be history soon. Every day they don't force voting rights is another day one Democratic senator might fall ill or be incapacitated and all hope lost, and that's especially true for Black voters. The only Biden story needs to be voting rights until that is fixed, I think.