A rallying cry to vote like a mother

It all started when Congress cut paid family leave from the Build Back Better legislation.Turning their outrage into action, eight women formed the Chamber of Mothers – a movement to unite mothers to advocate for a better America.

Through community and state chapters, the Chamber of Mothers prioritizes paid family leave, affordable childcare and maternal health with a goal of driving policy change at the federal and local levels.

Today, we are releasing our interview with Co-founders Raena Boston and Erin Erenberg in support of the Chamber of Mothers’ new campaign called “Vote Like a Mother.”

In this episode, they share the work they are doing and how to get involved to support their initiatives.

We also cover what it means to “vote like a mother” and how this campaign will help empower mothers to vote according to their interests this election cycle and beyond.

Allison: Erin and Raena, thank you so much for joining me here today on the False Tradeoff podcast.

Raena: Thank you for having us.

Erin: Thanks for having us, thrilled to be here.

Allison: I'm gonna start with a very simple question. What in the world does Chamber of Mothers mean? How did you come up with that name?

Erin: I remember where I was standing. I was in my laundry room. I was talking to Daphne Del Vaux, who's one of our co-founders, and she's a litigator for maternal rights in San Diego. And we had eight of us at the time who are moms and all over the country and we're professionals, doctors, lawyers, journalists, HR professionals.

And in addition, we all have communities of mothers. And so there were some advocates fighting for paid family medical leave as part of Build Back Better. And they were asking us for access to our communities. We were only too happy to provide that and to learn from these amazing advocates about the fight for paid family medical leave. 

And as I was sharing with Daphne about the potential of combining our communities to reach moms about advocacy. Daphne said that, you know, where is the chamber of mothers? There's the chamber of commerce. There's the AARP. There's the National Association of Realtors. There's even the NRA. 

There are all these groups that are affiliation groups where folks band together with a common need, a common concern, a common affiliation, and then demand what they need. And so when she said, where's the chamber of mothers? It was just that moment for all of us that was such an aha about the opportunity before us.

Allison: I love that story because I think when I first heard you telling me about that, I was like, that's such a good point that we're probably one of the largest groups of individuals in the United States and probably one of the most underrepresented in terms of our size and not having an organization that's fighting on our behalf. 

Erin: Just to underscore the numbers. I think that's always really helpful. 85 million mothers in the United States at last census report, there were 333 million Americans. So that's at least 25% of Americans are mothers. 86% of women alone plan to be mothers. We also define mothering as a verb. So it's actually a lot bigger than that. It's folks who are

leaning into care who care about mothering. And so the opportunity is massive. And there, to your point, there's not that alignment. There's a huge opportunity. And we really anchor into issues that everybody can agree are required. I mean, having time to care for a new life that you've brought into the world, just as we need time to care for folks who are elderly, for aging parents, for a family member who's sick, for ourselves when sick.

Maternal health, you know, a mom being able to survive childbirth and the first year postpartum, everybody can agree that this country needs to offer that. Childcare, you know, if we want working parents, we need childcare. Who's holding the baby after you have the baby? So it's some, these are issues really every American can agree on. It's sometimes about packaging and bridging false divides.

Allison: I can't imagine what it was like to then align on what your goals are, because it's such a massive group of individuals, and also quite a diverse group of individuals, and what people are struggling with, and what their needs are. How did you come up with your main goals, and what does success then look like for you?

Raena: We started off with paid leave as the thing that really brought us together. And by the end of 2021, we knew that it wasn't going to be in Build Back Better. It wasn't going to happen yet. I'm having a growth mindset about all of this yet. And we also knew that we had been influenced to continue going. There was no way that we could stop the momentum that we had built in that fiery energy, we had to put it to good use. And we needed to expand to include more than just paid leave. 

So what are some other things that are impacting mothers right now in working families is the lack of access to childcare, which was also included in Build Back Better, and then maternal health. 

And maternal health is broad, right? It includes not just physical and mental health, but it also includes things that are gonna impact those things that are in that same orbit. And so when I think about that, I think things that are impacting mental health is being afraid to send your kid to school because you don't know if there is going to be an active shooter or not having the proper time to recover after childbirth. These are all things that intersect, that...

You know, we talk a lot about, you mentioned the diversity of experience and this common experience of mothering, but what we've found is that the childcare crisis is impacting women who are upper middle class, it's impacting women who are working class, it impacts the middle class. All of these things are a common experience that we share. And while we may not agree on the means of how we get those things, these are things that are impacting our experience as mothers and don't allow us to show up and as our best selves.

Allison: Why do you think there wasn't a chamber of mothers until now?

Raena: That's a great question.

Erin: It's a great question. I mean, I'll tell you some things that we've heard when we ask questions related to that.

Unfortunately, it seems as though our culture relies on mothers being overworked in terms of unpaid labor, invisible labor, doing the majority of the household labor once they become mothers. And so a lot of mothers are frankly too tired, too spent, too overtaxed to spend time on advocacy.

It has required mothers to lead this effort also. So it's going back to, you know, what I'm sure a lot of us think about in many areas, which is folks who are most harmed and to whose detriment some failing social systems fall are the ones who are meant to solve the problem. So there's time poverty for mothers who are stretched between paid work and contributions outside the home and everything that they're doing inside the home. When are they going to come together and even have the time to imagine something different?

The systems that we're struggling under and through and with were not built by mothers. There's a stat by VoteMama that there are more senators with the name John than there are mothers across all of Congress. So we are not living inside systems built by mothers. We are suffering inside these systems and that time poverty especially really keeps us from being able to imagine something different, let alone do the work of building something different. And it requires community to sustain this kind of effort. So, you know, having the time, building the community, sustaining the effort.

The other thing is funding, honestly, Allison. I mean, if you look again at the numbers, 1.9% of philanthropic dollars go to causes that advance women and girls. So you have time poverty and you have resource poverty. So we're in this fight, we're up against a lot. 

I love how Raena talked about a growth and abundance mindset. It can be really hard to stay in that place when the fact of the matter is there is a resource poverty around the time and dollars that women and mothers have to create the change that we need.

Raena: I'd also like to add here that a huge part of our culture, American culture, is individualism. And so we women and moms especially have been taught to individualize and internalize institutional failures.

The lack of paid leave is an institutional failure. The lack of access to childcare and zero childcare infrastructure is an institutional failure. The fact that our maternal mortality rate continues to increase is an institutional failure. It is not our fault that our systems are not designed for us to succeed. 

However, we have seen that this is a problem and know that there is nobody that is coming to save us. We are the ones that are coming to save us. And so that's a lot of this mission in our movement, as Erin said, is building community. 

And I would even go so far as to say a lot of times I think motherhood is kind of seen as a competitive sport in our country because of the individualization of it. And so that leads to things like the mommy war. So things like, you know, working, being an at-home parent versus choosing to stay in the workforce. 

But if you back up a little bit, how many people actually have the choice? Because you cannot afford childcare, the choice is made for you, whether or not you're gonna participate in the workforce. These are not choices that people have. They're forced into a decision. 

And I think that is also very important to call out is that when we are fighting each other and instead of directing our ire at the institutions, then we are distracted and therefore cannot create this change that we need to create for every mom.

Allison: Oh, you've said two things that I want to dig into, and I'm debating which one to go to first. I'm gonna start with, who is your enemy in this? Because every time I hear about the work you're doing and others that are, you know, even I was speaking to a Congresswoman and I asked her the same question, who is the enemy?

 Because these seem so obvious, of course, I'm very biased. I live and breathe this space every day, but there is broad voter support for a lot of the things that you're fighting for. So then what's stopping us and who is the enemy?

Raena: That's a great question. Can I answer your question with a question? Who profits or benefits from the notion that moms don't deserve this support? And I would argue that it is a system that exists and thrives off of the underpaid, devalued, unvalued labor of women. 

So what is the motivation for these systems to change if they're doing just fine? 

Sure, like you gotta throw women and moms under the bus, but that means that they continue, like the same people, the Johns of the world, continue to stay in power, and they have somebody at home who is running the entire operation so that they get to do the things that they wanna do.

Allison: I think that's a great way to answer that question. And I would even build on that to say, that's probably where my disconnect comes into play because to me, I also believe in capitalism. And I think maybe the disconnect is when I look at this world, I think we could all be better off if we had these systems in place. Like it's not going to hurt the Johns of the world. It's going to actually raise everyone else up.

And maybe that's the enemy: the disconnect in the view of like, I don't know. I guess to me, that's why this becomes so confusing because it feels like the economy would be much better off if we had these systems in place that allowed more folks to thrive and make more money and contribute to society more broadly.

Raena: But how much of our society is asking, how will we pay for it? I don't know. Like there's just a mass confusion of…there just seems to be a very real scarcity mindset around these issues. And we are constantly met with the question, how do we pay for these things that every other similarly developed nation has? And that's the wrong question because we're already paying for it.

Allison: Right. Exactly.

Erin: I also think I'm with you both. And one thing that keeps coming up for me is sort of the enemy as status quo or inertia and just accepting that things have to be this way. Because I do think men and women suffer from the presumptions that our culture and our systems are in. I mean, in the year of the Barbie movie, we've seen that Ken suffers, too. I mean, men really are benefited by caregiving; their lives are enriched by caregiving. Their relationships with their children are enriched. They are enriched. Their mental health is better. And we're seeing a lot of statistics around that as well.

And it's, so it's sort of, you know, anytime I, I know I keep going back to the word imagine, and it's sort of a notion that got into my mind a lot around when we all came together. And then I'm obsessed with Trisha Hersey and the nap ministry and how she really talks about the reason that she is suggesting rest is that it's only through rest that we're able to imagine something different and how often Harriet Tubman rested, as part of her work on the Underground Railroad, she would rest and she would pray because she had to imagine she couldn't, you can't just keep hustling, you're gonna stay stuck within the stuckness, within the inertia and the status quo.

There has to be this moment where we collectively say, this isn't working. How can we imagine something new? What do we need? And I think there's a vulnerability needed for men and women, for all of us to say, like, what's not working for me? What's missing? In terms of, you know, my contribution as a woman, there are things that I desire to contribute outside of the home. There are things that I need to be…not necessarily to create whatever, just things that I need to be that I can't under the weight of expectation. And I know that men feel the same way around the different expectations that they have, but there's really a requirement that we imagine something new and we're in a grind.

Allison: You mentioned previously, here's the second thing I wanted to dig a little bit more into, community. You've mentioned that word several times. And what I think is really interesting about what you're doing is you have this really interesting online and offline structure in how you are building that community. Can you tell me more about how you strategically build community? And I also would love for you to share why you decided to build out local chapters.

Raena: So I'll start with the local chapters. In order to do this work, it is tough. It is arduous. It requires a lot of time. And all of those things are made more bearable when you do it in community. And on top of that, we are seeing that, you know, mothering is done so much in isolation. We all know the adage about, you know, it takes a village, but it also takes a village for a mother. We were never meant to do this alone. And so a part of local chapters is creating safe, bold spaces for women and moms to build a confident and competent community where they can feel the advocacy is something that they can do, that they have permission to do it, that they're not doing it in isolation. 

And then I would also add, I think so many times activism, people think it looks like going to a protest or holding a sign. There are so many different ways that you can be an activist and an advocate. And one of the exercises that we do is what kind of advocate are you? Are you the person that is reserving space and making sure that the places that we have these meetings are secured and all the logistics are managed? Are you the person that is going to go on a podcast and talk about this? Are you the person who's going to organize and, you know, be at the rally or go to DC, there is space for all of that. 

And it's okay to show up however you are, it doesn't mean you have to be somebody else in order to be an advocate or an activist for the things that you believe in. And I think that's a huge part of what we're doing with local chapters. And on the online side, what we do is provide digestible content for people to understand, get different viewpoints, see what's happening, understand this piece of legislation and it just becomes a way to stay connected and engaged in speaking to moms mom to mom about what's happening? What's going on where you can plug in what needs to be done? That's how I would sum up those two spaces, 

What would you add, Erin?

Erin: Absolutely, that's dead on. I also think about storytelling. You know, Raena really early on, when we were all coming together on her own, in her own community, The Working Momtras, had posted a question asking folks about childcare. How were they paying for childcare? What were their hurdles? What were their barriers to entry? 

And she heard these really compelling stories, one of which sticks with all of us, which is a mom was saying, I'm taking out a HELOC on my home in order to pay for childcare. And so we, you know, again, going back to time poverty, women connect through Instagram. We know moms connect through Instagram. We actually are doing a research exercise to see where younger moms are connecting online and make sure that we're in the right community with them. 

But moms are finding connections. They're finding information. They're finding a way to release a story or a feeling of stress that...whether it's through a funny reel or Raena and I are up late sometimes just flipping each other goofball reels as a way to like make it through the day. You know, moms are finding a sense of release and connection and they're finding ways to tell their stories there. We see a big opportunity in telling stories of moms and reaching more and more moms through social media. 

And then there's this beautiful connection to the chapters because those are more analog, of course, and you're hearing stories in a more 360 way. You're sitting with women, you're able to experience the emotion together. And again, there's this beautiful symbiosis between local chapters and our national work. So there's the online community, there's the in-person community, there's also local and national, right? 

So where we met, you know, our work is bipartisan. We met with Senator Katie Britt, who is a mom of young children. She's also in the state, Alabama, that has the second to worst maternal mortality rate in our country. And so we had a meeting with her about that and about trying to get her to sign on to the Black Maternal Health. And in order to get that meeting, she wanted a constituent. And so we were able to grab somebody who runs a birth work community in the state of Alabama and bring them into that meeting

And that was really only through that online and in-person connection. So we find that the power of being in community, as Raena said, and then also storytelling and using privilege, like the privilege of being able to be in that room, truly in that room in Congress with a lawmaker, we are able to be there through all the work that we're doing, the time that we've allocated to this, the different levels of privilege that we have in our lives. 

And then we're tapping folks who may not have the same privilege and say, hey, you can't make it to DC, hop on a Zoom and we're gonna make sure that, Congresswoman Britt, here's your story.

Allison: Let's talk about Vote Like a Mother. Tell me about that. Is that a campaign? Would you call it a campaign, a movement, an initiative? I would love for you to share more about that.

Erin: Let's do it. You can call it all those things, Allison. Yeah, so Vote Like a Mother is IP. It's a federal trademark we were gifted the IP right when we started. And quite frankly, we were so new that we knew it was an amazing IP and there's a community built around it, but we weren't quite sure what to do with it yet. Now that we have started up our own 501c3 and we're organized and we have our strategy in place.

We look at this election year and we know how important it is. Everybody has seen what happened in Kansas and Ohio when women turned out and stood up for their reproductive freedom, which we see as a big part of maternal health. We know it's part of maternal health. And so we see just such an opportunity for mothers to come out and vote according to interest. 

So Vote Like a Mother is a campaign that we're doing in concert with a few partners. I am a voter. You can text right now, anybody listening, you can try it out, do it right now, text mother to 26797. And not only will you go through the steps of being registered to vote, you can look up your status, you can find out where your polling place is, you can get information on the upcoming elections. Super important, you can download your sample ballot. So keep having this theme of time poverty.

Moms have so much on our plates. You don't want to go into the election feeling unsteady. You don't want to go in just influenced by external sources. You want to be able to download your sample ballot, take a minute when the kids are down, when you can think straight, when you can go on and Google who are these candidates, what are the issues, what do I care about? 

Google candidate name plus childcare plus maternal health plus paid family and medical leave, plus whatever the issue is that you care most about, find out where they stand, see what the initiatives are, when your local elections are coming up and really take a minute. 

So Vote Like a Mother is all about voting according to your interests as a mother. It is a bipartisan campaign. We're not telling you who to vote for, but we are telling you to look up your status, get really sturdy on what you believe and what candidates and measures fall in line with what you believe so that you make decisions related to voting that are according to your own interests.

Allison: And related to your motherhood, right? I mean, I think that's an interesting way to think about it. I originally was wondering if you were gonna do more to explain, you know, oh, here are the five different things that parents care about, and here's what each candidate feels. And it's interesting to me that you've structured it. You're not doing a prescriptive type of resource, it sounds like it's much more almost just reminding people, vote with that identity and those priorities that are important to you as a parent, but of course, as a mother in mind.

Erin: 100%.

Raena: It's also a rallying cry. Yeah, it's a rallying cry in that you can vote like a mother for climate change. You can vote like a mother for parental leave or paid family medical leave. You can vote like a mother for childcare. It is to me a rallying cry and it's a very empowered way to advocate and also for moms to know that the things that they care about are important.

They should be prioritized. They are kitchen table issues, literally. These are gigantic things that impact our economy. And you should vote like a mother for those things that matter.

Erin: 100% and to your point, to center your identity as a mother in your voting decisions. It's very in line with what we're doing with Chamber of Mothers again, like what are our affinities we have in common? What are our needs we have in common? If we are all centering our voting identity in motherhood, we can make a change together to create a country that better serves mothers. And that's our mission. It's uniting mothers as advocates to create a better America.

Allison: Yeah, and I think the reason it struck me when you first described it is, mothers almost always put ourselves last. And so it's this rallying cry to say, put yourself first, which actually isn't even that much about you. It's about your family and it's about your community and it's about everyone. So I just, I love it. I think it's so smart and it is really inspirational. 

I want to end with two questions. The first is, what should people do who are listening to this, who see our content on LinkedIn, when they are inspired by this – not if, when – they are inspired by this conversation, what should they do to help your cause?

Erin: They should open up their phones if they're not driving – make a mental note to do it later if they are – and follow @ChamberofMothers on Instagram. They should go to www.chamberofmothers.com If they can at all, even five bucks, they should donate. We are an all volunteer team of mothers. We are you, we are doing this work with and for you, creating the America that you need.

Join us, if you join us on our website, that means you're gonna get our newsletter. You're gonna find out all the different ways that you can advocate, even if it takes 30 seconds. So donate, join us, follow us on Instagram, chambermothers.com. Donate, join, be a part of it.

Allison: Last question for both of you. What are you most proud of having accomplished with the Chamber of Mothers to date?

Raena: That's a great question.

Allison: I want to end on a high note. There's so much more that we have to do, but you have also accomplished a lot. And so I want to end on a very positive note.

Raena: I'm most proud that we've kept going and that every step that we take forward, even when there are setbacks or hard things or roadblocks, we are still moving the needle bit by bit. And I see it and I'm so encouraged by mothers who are telling me about the activists that's been awakened within them, how they're bringing other people along, how they're looking for ways to plug in and get involved. 

And not only at the big federal level is it big, right? But locally, and that's another great thing about local chapters is you can create change locally just by knowing who represents you and bringing these things to the forefront. So I would say even just to me, I think our biggest accomplishment or thing I'm most proud of is reminding mothers of who they are and the power they possess and the change that they can affect.

Allison: I love that.

Erin: It's so beautifully said. I can't do better than Raena, she's exactly right. I think I'll add something very tactical because I agree that it will keep going. Everything she said is something really tactical and practical that we've done in a very distinctive way. 

We have answered the question that lawmakers have been asking, which is how can we pay for paid family medical leave? How can we pay for childcare? When we first went to Capitol Hill and those questions were asked of us, typically by fiscally conservative offices, the answers that they were given were really, in the past, very glib responses. Well, of course you can do it. You pay for defense. That's not really an answer. We have learned to be empathetic, to be listeners, to really hear the question asked and then to thoughtfully answer the question. 

And so when it comes to paid family medical leave, we drafted such an intelligent response to a request for information from Senator Gillibrand's office around a new paid family medical leave bill, which is how can we pay for it? Well, we already do pay for it. We provide paid family medical leave for federal workers and even during COVID, Trump was able to find funding under the FFCRA for at least two weeks for an emergency leave package. These were creative ways of doing it. There is a fiscally conservative and responsible way to pay for this work right now and to make sure that it's not just a matter of tax increases that hurt the economy. We've answered those questions. We've come from empathy and we've built bridges. I'm really proud of our team for doing that.

Allison: Raena and Erin, thank you so much for your time today. I am really inspired by all of the work that you're doing. And I do think just the fact that you're all volunteers, your passion, this came together in such an organic way. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this. I have no doubt that this movement is just gonna keep gaining more and more momentum. And so thank you so much for leading this on behalf of all of the mothers and even parents and everyone who is interested in all of these topics because they are so universal. Thank you so much for being here today and I look forward to rooting for you this entire time.

Raena: Thank you so much for having us.

Erin: Thank you for having us.