[USA]: Moms with young children and nursing babies need your help with the DNC!

[bialogue]

We're answering a call to action from the National Organization for Women ~ Pacific Shore OC branch and their venerable (and out bisexual we're mighty proud to say) organizer Zoe Nicholson. It seems that children will not be allowed access on the floor of the Democratic National Convention and that daycare will not be provided for delegates who

Comments

[livtheobsession]

I know this is sort of going to be a unpopular opinion and I totally understand that providing childcare is a HUGE deal for a lot of women. Still, I don't think that it's mandatory that the convention allow children inside.

[noodledays]

of course it's not mandatory. doesn't mean it's the decent and respectable thing to do for the party that purports itself as the party looking after women.

[fortunaestcaeca]

+1

[redstar826]

A baby I could understand because they would likely sleep right through it. But, I just can't imagine a 4 year old finding the convention remotely interesting. Poor kid would probably be bored out of her mind on the convention floor.

That said, I'm surprised there aren't some sort of arrangements for delegates with small children.

[bestdaywelived]

Agreed. They aren't allowed at most professional conferences, and honestly, presumably any woman delegate would have childcare plans in place.

[fortunaestcaeca]

"presumably any woman delegate would have childcare plans in place"

What if she can't afford childcare for the length of the convention? Should she have to stay home?

[alltheshooting]

That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be childcare provision at professional conferences though

[pinkminx]

Yeah, because the professional world has an AWESOME track record with women's rights, particularly when said women are anything but white collar, bourgeois honkies. I suppose it's okay to opt out of feminism in this respect, or to only look for the rights of the haves here?

[guaparella]

<3

[pinkminx]

:-)

[thepuddingcook]

Yeah, I am iffy on that part. At a conference one of our participants was nursing...she brought her DD and grandma took care of her, but I doubt the baby would have much liked to be at the sessions and I think it was unspoken that she wouldn't be.

I think they SHOULD provide childcare though, and it really steams me that they aren't.

[quixotic_coffee]

I think it's weird people are speaking on behalf of babies. Aren't babies pretty good to go wherever they are as long as they're safe and comfortable?

[pinkminx]

Small babies don't give a shit as a general rule. :-) Bigger ones might or might not find it a trial to be present somewhere with lotsa folks (mine would've been good to take to things like these as a small infant, and again from six months to about a year of age) but again... having kids is reality for a lot of women, and it seems very weird to me that a party that claims to be for the downtrodden and the disenfranchised would not want to put their money where their mouth is and make arrangements to best meet the needs of this particular population segment. It's like, yeah, we value your voice, we care about you... but let's not kid ourselves that we'd actually want to accommodate your or listen to you

[sadistnation]

It would have been reprehensible to expect her not to nurse her baby for the sake of the conference, and she likely would have had to take a break to express milk if she didn't have her baby there to nurse, anyways.

[macychick]

[nerdanel]

Strongly agree with this.