Parents Rising (in Astoria)

Talking with my cousin, whose sweet daughter is 10 months old, I realized that there's a lot more that I could be and should be doing to advocate for parents. She is helping start an organization in her area that will hopefully lead to workplaces being more family friendly (places to pump at work/breastfeed, more tolerance for parents who want flexible time, etc), and also to help families get access to good quality childcare.

Yes, people have been having children since the beginning of time. And having a child at any time in history has meant sacrifice. Having a child, caring for children, becoming a parent and learning how to be a parent is hard work- and always has been. I don't expect it to be easy. I'm sure that it was not easy for my mother and father, and for their parents, either. But the family unit has been changing- women used to stay home and now often want to or have to work. Grandmothers and Aunts and extended families might have once been nearby. Today, families are often very spread apart.

I think that it's really important for families to help each other. Belonging to my meetup group has been great- I have met other wonderful families who have become my family here in Astoria. My neighbors have been helpful friends, also. I've learned about parenting and the ins and outs of finding childcare, schools, etc from my friends, co-workers, listserves and message boards. I've given advice when I could, also. It's so important to have these outlets when we are separated from our extended families, or just plain don't have any.

But I think that I could do better. I'm hoping to start a "momsrising"/"parentrising" group in Astoria. I'd like to talk to our politicians about finding ways for families get excellent childcare, family leave, paid sick days, good afterschool programs, and flexible work.

http://www.momsrising.org/

New York has some good programs in place, but life can be very hard for families here. For Astorians, we might be interested in finding out how to make afordable housing for families. And work on our daycares, schools and afterschool progams, too.

Also, I think that it would be a good place to start to find out ways how we could help other families in Astoria. I'm not struggling financially, today at least, but there are so many who are. And so many who need advocates so that they can have a voice.

I'm going to have a "parent's rising" party at my house in the next month or so- I ordered their dvd that can show us how to start- and I want to see if our Astoria chapter can set an agenda of items that are important to us. And we'll see how far we want to take it- we just may end up shooting off a few emails to some politicians, or we might really try to look at changing policies/schools/childcare around here.

I'll be posting about it on our meetup site, but want to include anyone in the Astoria hood who would be interested. Of course, all "parents" are welcome- momsrising has dads in it too! Email me.......