Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities

Preface

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a compilation of essays, narratives, and concrete suggestions on ways that social justice communities and movements can support the parents, children, and caregivers in their midst. It is a book for everyone, particularly activists and organizers without children of their own, who would like to become better allies to the parents and children in their communities.

This book is the culmination of a seven-year collaboration between two radical mothers, Vikki Law and China Martens. The origins of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind go back to 2003 when we first met and co-facilitated a workshop (for parents) on creating a radical parents’ support network at Baltimore’s Anarchist Bookfair. At first, we attempted to hold our workshop inside the building where the bookfair took place. When we realized that parents were having problems keeping their small children occupied, we moved the workshop onto the grass outside so that the children could play. One mother volunteered to do childcare, so that the other parents could talk and listen without missing the discussion to chase their children. However, this meant she missed the workshop entirely. The parents who attended all stated that they had very little support from their radical communities; they often felt forced to rely on mainstream resources that were neither meeting all of their needs nor reflecting their values. Our conversation with disheartened, burnt-out, and tired parents was a stark contrast with the carefree-looking faces of attendees without children who were joyfully walking by, sometimes smiling at the children as they passed. They had the energy we needed! The radical parents needed the support of the predominantly childless crowd who were coming and going all around us.

After that event, we realized the need to give workshops for the whole community, especially those without children of their own. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind evolved from this experience.

In 2006, the anarcha-feminist conference La Rivolta! invited us to facilitate a workshop on why those interested in anarchism and/or feminism should be concerned about mothers’ and children’s issues and how they can support the families in—or slowly being pushed out of—their movements. That one workshop led to several others—in Montreal, Baltimore, and Providence—that same year. Since then, we have presented or participated in more than a dozen workshops and discussions at various conferences, bookfairs, and gatherings. The continued interest in our talks illustrates the growing awareness among social justice organizers of the need to support families as well as the growing realization that they may not necessarily know how to do so.

Over the years, we have engaged in many conversations on how to increase community support with different people and in different locations. We have heard from single moms struggling to balance childrearing and political involvement with little to no recognition or support from their childless peers. We have heard from mothers who take action to save their children’s futures and are then criticized by both spouses and community for neglecting family duties. We have heard from fathers who do not leave their children behind to save the world, despite peer pressure to do so, but instead extend their fathering to others in the world. We have heard from parents of children with developmental disabilities and (adult) disability justice activists; from trans parents and doulas supporting incarcerated mothers. We also heard from teachers and childcare workers. We have heard, time and again, about the many ways that race, gender, class, geography, custody agreements, and health, among other factors, impact families and children. Not all groups of parents struggle equally.

Nor do all groups of parents and caregivers speak or write in the same way. As editors, we have done our best to keep the writers’ original voices intact. As you leaf through the pages, you’ll notice British spellings from contributors in the UK and Australia, the intermingling of Spanish mixed with English words and word choices and spellings that may seem unconventional. In all cases, there are intentions behind the words, from Maegan Ortiz’s use of Spanish peppered into her essay to Tiny’s poetic license in splicing the words messed and with into a new word: withed.

We also had conversations with each other as radical mothers of two different generations. Vikki’s daughter was two and China’s was fifteen when we first met. We have different life experiences: Vikki is a mother of color raising her child in predominantly white anarchist circles in NYC. She recognized that the support she received from her community enabled her to stay involved in political work. China is a single mother who has moved often, always looking for better environments in which to raise her child. She returned to Baltimore, where she and her daughter have lived since 2001. While she feels blessed for the support of family, friends, and community, she has still experienced the poverty resulting from insufficient support.

Regardless of the differences in our lives and experiences, we recognize that, despite its rhetoric of creating works based on solidarity and mutual aid, anarchist and radical movements mimic, to a degree, the greater society’s unreasonable expectations of parents, especially mothers, and children. When a radical woman becomes a mother, she often finds herself left behind by her mostly childless peer group. Various social justice movements and radical left philosophies challenge us to create personal and social change but often provide no support for mothers who try to do so.

Readers may also notice that the stories in this anthology reflect the racial divide that often occurs in social justice organizing. This reflects the world that we live in despite rhetoric that we live in a post-racial era. We recognize these divides and have striven to include the diversity of voices across these divides without creating a laundry list of identities that tokenizes more than recognizes. No one book can cover everyone and everything. Similarly, readers should not assume that any one person or group’s experience is universally shared. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind should not be seen as the all-encompassing book. It is an opening to a conversation and a reminder to stay open and mindful to others’ stories, needs, and experiences.

How do we support the different needs of our children, their caretakers, and our communities in an environment where access to resources is so unequal?

We need to refocus on community support. Nuclear families are a recent invention and have not historically been the way children have been raised. We recognize that even two-parent families, as well as all those who do caretaking work, also need support. Respecting, valuing, and sharing caregiving work helps diffuse the stress and builds a healthier community for all. We all need to learn how to take care of others as well as ourselves, how to nurture and how to share physical and emotional responsibilities.

How do we create new, non-hierarchical structures of support and mutual aid, and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? There are many books on parenting, but few on being a good community member and a good ally to parents, caregivers, and children as we collectively build a strong all-ages culture of resistance. Any group of parents will tell you how hard their struggles are and how they are left out, but no book focuses on how allies can address issues of caretakers’ and children’s oppression. Isolated by age within an individualistic, capitalist culture, many well-intentioned childless activists don’t interact with young people on a regular basis and don’t know how. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind provides them with the resources and support to get started. Together we can build a better world without leaving anyone behind.

One

CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO

We’re tired of activists wondering where all the parents are when we’re sitting at home with no money, no transportation, and no childcare… We expect to struggle against the world; we don’t expect to struggle in our own community. —Revolutionary Anarchist Mom and Baby League, Allies, Who Aren’t, Earth First! Journal (2003)

Why should I care? I didn’t choose to have children is a common refrain among many individuals without children in social justice movements. This question ignores the connections linking all systems of oppression. When any one group disregards the needs of any other group, it perpetuates the inequities of the larger society. The myth of independence over interdependence is a capitalism-induced illusion. We all rely on each other and we all have different needs (which also change across our lifespan). How do we build the world we want to see if we refuse to recognize and support each other’s access to meet basic needs?

When movements and communities fail to collectively support having children in their spaces and events, they perpetuate and reinforce the belief that families need to turn back to the dominant system—with all its privilege, lack of privilege, patriarchy, exploitation, inequality, and injustice—to take care of their needs. Many families struggle to build communities of resistance and to fight injustice while, at the same time, feeling that these same communities dismiss, devalue, or don’t even consider their needs and the needs of their children.

How do we create new, non-hierarchical systems of support and mutual aid? How can we include people of all ages in our struggles for social justice? We can begin by listening to the stories and experiences of those on the front lines.

Audacious Enough Mama

Fabiola Sandoval

Yesterday, I took my baby to a meeting with staff members from the County to discuss the creation of an emergency housing access center for the growing number of families in downtown LA. With baby in my lap, I silently disagreed while feeling audacious and political just by taking my child into this setting.

The space alone had me quiet. Everyone talked over each other during the heated fundamental bigger picture moments. Upper management titles were propped up around the fancy wooden table, an intimidating sight. In a conference room of professionals without children present, I remained silent.

My silence seeped in the fear of getting kicked out, or thrown an uncomfortable dirty look or a whisper, due to a small child on my lap. (For the record, if she screams for more than a few seconds, I leave any room.)

Being a mom in public with a toddler is trying, especially in places like meetings, trainings, conferences, and events. I am always worried about getting in the way of an anti-child person, getting a disgusted look, hearing a remark that will bother the hell out of me and have me thinking it through the next time. Making a trip to an un—family friendly setting is an act that requires a certain "I don’t give a personality that, on occasion, I might have. Usually, though, leaving the house is an act reserved for child-friendly places.

I’ve been told that I’m too worried that my child will disrupt something and that I’ve allowed this to affect my presence, voice, and input. My five senses are always divided in staying attentive as a mother and as a productive member of a meeting/training/event. Staying on top of both is exhausting and keeps me nervous despite the fact that I’ve been taking my daughter into those strictly adult places for a year now. This level of caretaker worried-the-hell-out-of-inconveniencing-other-folks has largely preoccupied me to the point of constantly leaving a room. Even when I’m on the agenda in a meeting, I give priority to not inconveniencing childfree people. I’ve been called out for not taking risks by disagreeing, for not contributing, for not resisting to leave a room while fabniña relaxes a bit. I will often say something after a training: write my thoughts down to then share after a committee meeting, only to then be asked why I didn’t share with the rest from the start.

My experiences have given me awareness of the very real power dynamics between individuals with and without children: awareness of the stigma associated with mothering, and the risks of oppression for caretakers with small children in public spaces.

In the meeting with the County professionals, folks talked about getting families (meaning mothers of color who have one to three children) out of homelessness, but not once broached the idea of creating affordable long-term housing; no one even mentioned the possibility that the need-to-be-fixed-and-helped crowd can and should remain in an invested community instead of being pushed out. Why do Work, Live and Play revitalization plans mean high-end lofts for young urban professionals without children who are able to pay $2,500 in rent while single women, men, and families that have been on skid row must resort to transitional shelters and emergency beds for months and years? Not once were these radical ideas considered by those who want to alleviate homelessness and affordable housing dilemmas. In that moment, I hated reform to the bone. I walked out of the room and dared someone to question children in public spaces, my just let someone mess with me attitude in development.

I have also attended other, more grassroots community housing rights events. These groups are mostly Salvadorian, Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, and include one or two families from South America. There are children at these meetings, yes, and quite a number of them. Both of these groups are working towards housing equity and tenant rights. Most of the folks that come out to the events, convivios (get-togethers), and leadership development meetings are women, specifically women of color, who are mothers. They take their children everywhere.

There are also the older folk and the non-parents who dislike having the children around. At the first meeting I attended, there was a critique about the children being noisy, annoying, rambunctious, wild, making it hard to concentrate; one or two folks were pissed. Now, part of the problem was that they didn’t want children around at all. The other problem was that women who were active weren’t paying attention to their children. Not once was someone willing to sit with the children with colors, paints, paper, etc., in another room because of the gendered and low value of that work.

Even more women and children were present at the second event I attended. The children were in a room with a woman who was playing, coloring, painting, drawing, and reading with them. The women’s work that appeared to have low value in the last group was valued in this situation. Since the childcare responsibilities of the group were recognized and rotated, these women are able to be the fiercest active leaders in a community fighting gentrification. They have not dropped off the radar because they are mothers. They organize themselves to adapt to the phases of mothering young children.

The victories that I have seen at a grassroots, working class level, from the bus riders’ union and garment workers to major land and job agreements, have been from mothers and folks who aren’t against mothers or children. Mothers are a proven force in grassroots victory in our communities at home and abroad. They are essential to any movement that is trying to create change in the name of justice.

I feel that it is time I begin advocating my own work-in-progress, publicly confident, mama-with-child-on-her-hip presence in my activism work—work that I do with very progressive feminist women who have the means to leave their children at home or women who are not mothers at all. I need to start calling out the societal age-ism towards children when I see it and when it is directed home. It is time for the unapologetic I don’t need your permission to have my child present on my lap or hip, or crawling/running around thought to gain strength. It is time for me to proudly parent in public as I facilitate, disagree, and give input in heated discussions, even while fabniña arches her back, pushes her legs in the air, and screeches in protest to be released and run out of the room from the eyes and ears of the children-less crowd.

Fathering the World

Tomas Moniz

Of all the pictures of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, one mesmerized and overwhelmed me, seeming to contain all that I wanted to believe about fathers—no, not just fathers, but men in our lives. The picture transcended the racist media spin; it eased the pain of the decimated street scenes and moments of panic. One man. One child, a child not his. The man was wading through water, holding the child as if this was the most important thing he could do, as though not just the child’s life but his own life depended on their safe arrival. He asked no questions about whose child it was; there was no need to ascertain ownership or ask permission. There were no pathetic excuses about needing to wait and see, to assess things, like we kept hearing from men in charge. He knew: I help this child and I help myself. I help all of us get by. There was such humanity in his arms, in the determination in his eyes. It spoke to me as the epitome of fathering, of caring for not just about our immediate family but about all our relations. I stared, reminded of how much of an impact we can have on the children in our lives, how easy it is to overlook, to forget, to deprioritize others as we take care of our own.

A few weeks ago, I heard a story about a young boy who has been in my life for years now, a boy whose own father has not been around, a father whom I cannot find a way to forgive nor understand his willingness to abandon, like something disposable, his offspring. Well, this boy was with his mother, and was looking into one of those mirrors that elongates and distorts its reflection. He stared at himself, made a muscle, and said, Look, it’s almost as big as Tom’s. When I heard how he compared his reflection to me, I again realized, as with the picture, how fathering is something all men do, whether we want to or not, whether we are prepared for it or not. So it is incumbent upon us to think through who we are and how we affect others, especially the children in our lives. And this is true, whether we are parents or not. Around the same time, I had an argument about this with a male non-parent who said it’s not his responsibility to know how to be around kids. He believes this because of the silence around parenting, around the public’s perceptions of children being seen not heard, of good behavior equaling good kids, of ownership (If it ain’t my kid, why should I care?). I have friends who take diversity training courses to be prepared to work with people of color, enroll in permaculture classes for the coming demise of civilization, but seem unconcerned about working with parents or kids, outreaching to parents or kids, or creating ways to make actions, spaces, conferences parent- and child-friendly. This silence and inaction is a failure. It’s unforgivable.

I feel that we men are particularly at fault. There is a silence among men about fathering. I experience this as I talk with men about fathering; they are excited yet scared, nervous about making mistakes. Most are dying to parent in ways that many of us weren’t fathered. But there are very few role models, and the society we live in disempowers men to break from the prescribed role of the male parent, the role that supports patriarchy, capitalism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism. Unfortunately, many women collude in this process of disempowering male experiences of parenting. Women, it seems, are often cast in roles to speak about parenting because somehow they are better with kids, more sensitive, more nurturing, because they are women while men can only speak about being proud, being happy and supportive. Or, even worse, they can address only issues of discipline. It has been very difficult to get men to commit to writing something about their ideas, their approach, their fears or experiences of parenting. They feel shamed, silenced, or not knowledgeable enough.

This must end. The diversity of fathering is multitude, while the prescribed role remains largely singular.

What can we learn from a gay father about discussing sexuality with our daughters? I want to hear it. What can a working class father share with us about fighting patriarchy in the household while still having to struggle with a nine-to-five job? We need to hear it. How does a white father discuss race with his white son