My friend Tasha can peel a banana with one hand. I watched her do it once, toddler on her hip and phone balanced between her ear and shoulder, her thumb snapping back the stem to get it started. She was answering the 24-hour emergency line at the veterinary office she had worked in for the better part of a decade, assuring the man on the other end that his dog would be just fine.
I’m sure Tasha has many other talents, but it’s this scene that I think of when I think about how busy moms are.
Moms are caretakers and caregivers, housekeepers, cooks, and, as often as not, workers. I don’t take it personally when the moms in my life can’t show up to my backyard parties or the hikes I invite them on—Lord knows, they have plenty to do.
How is it then that so many moms, everywhere, are showing up?
Over the last few years, I’ve sat in community meetings, town halls, and attended countless protests all over the country and every single one of these events is filled with moms. As frequently as not, they are driven by mom connections and mom power.
In Staunton, Virginia, the weekly “Signs of Facism” protest is organized by two moms. In Columbus, Ohio, a local church effort to open their doors on cold winter nights is organized by three moms with 10 children between them. In Atlanta, Georgia, a door-to-door effort to educate renters about their housing rights is run by four moms.
My dad had a saying when I was little that I thought was funny but didn’t understand. “If you need something done quickly,” he’d say, “Ask the busiest man on the job.” I get it now, but think it best applies to mothers.
Moms get things done. I used to joke to my co-workers as we arrived at 8 a.m. that I had gotten 10 things done while they were just getting started on their days. I had woken up my son, gotten him dressed, fed him, packed his lunch, found his shoes, signed permission slips, helped him pack up his homework, gotten him out the door, driven him to school, and often had gone grocery shopping all before my workday started.
There is an undeniable efficiency and reliability that often comes with motherhood. Moms know how to coordinate multiple people’s days: pick ups and drop offs and football practice, dance classes, and school plays. Moms know how to make a schedule and stick to it; one of my dearest mom-friends, Ling Sue, taught me how to color code a calendar and I’ve never turned back.
But I don’t think our complicated schedules and proficiency at multitasking is the full reason why so much local organizing is driven by mothers. I think it has more to do with us having real skin in the game.
I felt a great relief in becoming a mother, but not because things were easy. On the contrary—I was a single mom and for most of my son’s childhood things were pretty rough, and we were absolutely broke. Instead, the relief I felt was clarity: All of a sudden, everything I was doing was for the future. It’s as if becoming a mom forced my priorities to line up right in front of me and I just had to push through with the plan. I wanted to invest every moment I could in building a better world for him.
I sense this same clarity when I talk to moms who are so deeply involved in community organizing.
In Roswell, New Mexico, the driving force behind two weekly meals served to the large (and growing) unhoused population is Jocelyn Smith, a single mom who also works at a local radio station. When I asked her why she spends so much of her week and free time collecting food for others, she said simply: “Because I get it.”
I suspect there has never been a time when being a mom has been easy, but we live in a time and place where it seems excruciatingly hard. Between the high cost of living, the need for households with multiple incomes, and a lack of paid leave and affordable childcare, moms are often stuck between a rock and a hard place in our country. More and more moms not only want, but desperately need things to change.
I recently spoke with Heather Haaland, a Durango, Colorado, mom of two young boys. Heather works full time and was absolutely shocked at the price of childcare and how hard it was to secure it. At one point she did the math: more than 40% of her income was going to childcare. “We are middle class but we still feel the struggle,” she said.
Heather helped to start a local chapter of Mother Forward—an organization of mothers who are fighting for paid leave and better childcare across the country. Together with dozens of other very busy moms, Heather has spent the last year door knocking and phone banking to pass local and state legislation to improve their situation. Their hard work is paying off: three of the four bills they have supported, and all three ballot initiatives, have passed. That’s a helluva track record.
So, if you were inclined to, I’d advise you not to dismiss the moms. From Fannie Lou Hamer and Dolores Huerta to Jocelyn and Heather and all the other moms showing up for our communities every day, celebrate us for our commitment and caregiving, our hard work and our nurturing, and also for our forceful and fearless organizing.
