Forget the Flowers!

This Mother’s Day, what Mothers want is a gender responsive economic recovery.

On the approach to Mother’s Day this year, as I have been bombarded with a variety of advertisements for colorful bouquets, pink boxes of chocolates and stuffed animals, I have been struck by how much we as a society profess our love and appreciation for our mothers. How lovingly we have placed motherhood on a pedestal, while abjectly failing to put in place essential and fundamental protections and policies that would recognize and support the unpaid or underpaid care work of women, and especially mothers, in the care economy. Nothing in recent history has made the sheer urgency and universal necessity of policy reforms that would benefit women and mothers, such as paid sick leave, affordable childcare, basic labor protections, decent pay, pay equity and access to affordable housing, more glaringly obvious than the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Over recent weeks, home care aides, hospital cleaners, fast food workers, grocery store workers, and restaurant staff have found themselves unsupported, underpaid and ill-equipped on the frontlines of this pandemic. The vast majority of these workers are women and mothers of color, risking their lives so that many of us can stay safely at home. While it is nice to think of these workers as among the heroines of the pandemic, in doing so we ignore their lack of choices and support.

Employment data shows that women have been hardest hit by job losses across almost all sectors in the COVID-19 labor market, and markedly in the hospitality, services, health and education sectors. This does not account for the job losses of low-wage women workers in the informal sector, particularly domestic workers. Women and mother who, prior to the pandemic, cleaned and cared for us, our children, our aging loved ones, often intimately in our homes, and have now found themselves hastily discarded, unable to pay rent or afford groceries. Women retaining jobs on the frontlines know very well they have few options but to continue to exchange their safety for an inadequate paycheck.

Women like Aracely, a domestic worker and mother of a three-year-old with asthma, who has had to weigh going hungry with travelling on public transportation to her jobs each day, and the terrifying risks of bringing COVID-19 home to her vulnerable child.

Even mothers fortunate enough to have the opportunity to “work” from home, who may face less financial distress, have found their unpaid labor taken almost entirely for granted. Working mothers are predictably carrying the lion share of the burdens of ensuring their families are fed and cared for, their homes cleaned and elders cared for, while caring for small children all day, often while homeschooling school age children, generally stopping their kids from injuring each other, all while trying to meet the demands of bosses who frequently have no such demands on their time. It is exhaustingly and frustratingly obvious that the unpaid or underpaid labor of women and particularly mothers continues to be undervalued and exploited in this pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, low-wage and informal workers lacked basic workplace protections, decent wages, paid sick leave, access to affordable housing, and access to healthcare. Domestic workers, who toil doing outsourced women’s labor for families across America, in particular, have almost no labor law protections, working without contracts, benefits and frequently earning less than minimum wage. Domestic caring and cleaning workers who are still working, must use public transportation and/or work in home health facilities where they are being exposed to COVID-19 often without access to PPE, hazard pay or health care. Many of these workers, particularly, immigrants and mixed status families remain unable to benefit even from the meager and much delayed relief offered in the CARES Act.

Naomi, an immigrant domestic worker and a member of the Miami Workers Center’s We Dream in Black domestic worker network, is not eligible for any stimulus relief even though she is going through the residency process. She is desperate to return to work to ensure their survival, even though she is terrified that it will mean she must arrange some childcare for her one-year-old which could expose her child to COVID-19.

Communities across Florida are debating the merits of Governor DeSantis’s recent announcement regarding reopening the state in phases, and Miami-Dade County Mayor Gimenez has promised to reopen the economy in Miami-Dade County “as fast as possible.” Working mothers, especially low-wage workers and domestic workers do not have a voice in this process. Yet, women are sounding the alarm that any successful plan for reopening and robust economic recovery must include policies that work for women. We can’t rebuild our economies until we recognize with more than just flowery lip service, that the unpaid and underpaid labor provided by black and brown women, especially mothers, is central to our collective economic success.

As we cautiously begin a long, slow, journey to economic recovery, or as Mayor Gimenez calls it a new normal, we have an opportunity to demand that efforts to rebuild our economy reflect what our communities really need, namely work and policies that meet the needs of women, especially mothers. Instead of placing mothers on a pedestal, let’s really value them by placing them at the center of our recovery efforts and developing a plan that:

• Ensures that the low-wage workers that are most affected, particularly Black and Latina women and mothers, are at the center of our recovery efforts and are meaningfully engaged in the decision-making around reopening in Miami-Dade County and the State of Florida;
• Prioritizes economic recovery efforts that will provide essential supports to working mothers such as paid sick leave, rent control, childcare or tutoring support, and increased protections for informal workers;
• Extends stimulus relief to those workers who are not currently eligible, regardless of immigration status, ensuring everyone who needs it can access financial relief for the duration of this crisis and its aftermath;
• Ensures that the distribution of relief and recovery resources such as food, rent and utility assistance at the local level are equitable for workers, for example the time of distribution, accessibility for folks with disabilities and without transportation, immigration status, and access to financial institutions.

Forget the flowers, the platitudes and the stuffed animals this Mother’s Day — what the mothers and mother figures in our lives really want and deserve are economic recovery efforts that place mothers at the center and reflect and value just how much we all rely on women’s, and particularly mother’s, Black and Brown unpaid or underpaid and undervalued care work and labor. Now more than ever, the Miami Workers Center is committed to an ambitious vision to support, organize and empower women towards ending the feminization of poverty.

Santra Denis is the new Interim Executive Director of the Miami Workers Center. The Miami Workers Center is committed now more than ever to an ambitious vision to support, organize and empower women towards ending the feminization of poverty, and defending our rights to a living wage, income security, gender responsive policies.