Ask pretty much any parent these days whether there’s pressure, and I think you’d be met with one of those wide eyeball rolls. Uh, excuse me? Yeah, there sure is.
As in, where’s nationalized health care (or for that matter, any accessible health care even if you are being robbed for it?)? Where’s actual paid or easily won unpaid, unpunished family leave? Where’s affordable, quality childcare for all? Where are school breaks parents have enough time off to cover? I could go on like that.
Plus, once your kids are through the minute-to-minute or hour-to-hour parent-on years and you’re thinking college (dizzyingly expensive and much harder to get into then back in the “day” when we were applying) and life (checked out the economy or the unemployment rates for twentysomethings?).
My dear husband has a smart crush on Nate Silver of 538-fame and Nate’s sober prediction 365 days before Election Day 2012 is that unless the economy rallies, President Obama basically does not stand a chance. Even Cain, in Nate Silver’s reckoning, could beat him.
Excuse me? Really? Are you kidding?
By far the worst news I received all weekend—and if it turns out to be true, it’ll be far worse, period end of story.
Let’s not let that happen. It’s Election Day 363 days shy of next year’s big election. In my town, if you can, please vote (for mayor, city council and to preserve the Community Preservation Act). A group of bloggers put together an open letter (thank you to the core parent activists who did this) to each and every Presidential candidate about what parents want addressed by our leaders.
I am blogging-in here.
**
Dear 2012 Presidential Candidates,
We are your future constituents and we are parents.
We are American mothers and fathers and grandparents and guardians. Our families might be the most diverse in the world. Blended and combined in endless permutations, we represent every major religion, political ideology and ethnic culture that exists. We are made from equal parts biology and choice. Our children come to us in every way possible—including fertility miracles, adoption, and remarriage.
Our very modern families embody the freedom that defines America. We embody America. We are rich in diversity, but we are united in our family values. We come together today, with one voice, to express our grave disappointment in the national political discourse.
The 2012 countdown has barely begun and we are already being bombarded with the warmed-over, hypocritical rhetoric of 2008. We are living in a time where 15.1% of Americans now live in poverty, the unemployment rate stands at 16%, and we are spending close to $170 billion annually between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan*.
Given the current state of affairs we would expect every candidate to focus on the issues that truly matter: job creation, debt-relief, taxes, education, poverty, and ending the war(s). Instead, it is already clear to us that the conversation has been hijacked, with the goal of further polarizing our nation into a politically motivated and falsely created class-war.
We will not stand for another campaign year in which politicians presume to know what our family values are as they relate to the nation.
To be clear, here are our family values:
Affordable health care, including family planning, for all Americans. We will not tolerate any candidate using the shield of “Choice” to blind us from the issues that really matter. When funding is stripped from organizations like Planned Parenthood, access to sliding-scale health care (including yearly pap smears & mammograms), comprehensive sex education, and family planning is blocked from the poorest of the population.
Access to education, and the ability to actually use it. We want quality, affordable, federally-funded pre-K programs made available in every State, in order to provide an even starting point for all children enrolled in public schools— regardless of the wealth of the district or town they live in.
A reinstatement of regulations for banks issuing mortgages and full prosecution for those who engaged in fraudulent lending practices. We want full accountability —investigation, indictment and prosecution— of those individuals and institutions who engaged in fraudulent lending practices and who helped create the massive foreclosures that left many families homeless or struggling to keep their homes.
A return of strict environmental regulations protecting water, air, food, and land that were removed in the last two decades. We want our children to grow up in a world not weighed down by the strains of pollution and global warming. Between BPA in our products, sky-rocketing rates of asthma in kids, questionable hormones in our over-processed food, and more, we need leaders who will put our needs and safety over the desires and profits of large corporations.
Family planning, healthcare, education, economic solvency and environmental safety: these are our national family values.
Candidates who demonstrate the ability to understand the gravity of these issues, and their impact on our families, and who can provide actual, viable solutions to these problems will garner our support and our votes.
We believe in this democratic system of ours, and we will continue to use our voices and our votes to see that it reaches its fullest potential.
Sincerely,
Your future constituents,
The mothers & fathers of America
If you would like to forward this letter to your elected officials, you can find their contact info at the following links:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
* Sources for stats: http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/poverty_rate_income/index.htm
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.4452bed82adf3124e5884678e236d7fb.361
To see who is participating in Blog-In 2011, please click here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pBuBqfCu9ReVNmMu-F08TX6HXhLps98756FkVNBMAE4/edit
