Mother’s Day Call to Action

Release Date: May 8, 2016 

Co-author, Jackie Bezos

As mothers and grandmothers who have dedicated our lives to serving children, our own and others, we know firsthand how important a stable home, a positive emotional and learning environment and safe communities are for a child’s healthy development. Think about it: no one would construct a building without first laying a strong foundation. Yet too many children in New York City and in our nation are born into poverty and begin their lives without the most basic supports they need.

In New York City, over 150,000 children under five are poor. Last year, nearly 20,000 of these children slept in homeless shelters – enough to fill Madison Square Garden. From the moment they’re born, children in poverty face an uphill struggle to survive, thrive and learn with so many odds stacked against them. These children are born with tremendous potential and if we want to help them, we must act immediately.

There is no time in life when the brain develops more rapidly than in the first years—at an astonishing rate of 700-1,000 new neural connections every second. Each connection helps establish the architecture of the brain and is a precursor for functions including language, social skills, and problem solving that are crucial for a child’s success in school and life. This incredible time of development peaks before children reach preschool.

Babies are born wired for interaction. Consistent, positive communications between young children and the adults in their lives are crucial. Every time we interact with a child—to read, giggle, sing and babble with them—we’re not only building a brain, we are building the foundation for our collective future.

But preventable poverty and toxic stress can impede and derail a child’s early brain development. The school-readiness gap impacting poor children is big and deep and its implications lasting. A Children’s Defense Fund report, Ending Child Poverty Now, points to several studies including one that found by age four high-income children had heard 30 million more words than poor children. Another found poor preschoolers had already fallen behind those from wealthier families, and were less able to recognize letters, count to twenty, or write their names. By the time they entered kindergarten, children from poor families were six months or more behind in reading and math skills.

In addition to quality interactions with parents, grandparents and other caregivers, young children need access to a full continuum of high quality early learning opportunities so that every child, regardless of circumstance of birth or lottery of geography, is ready for school and has a fair chance to reach their fullest potential. This is not only the just but the smart and cost-effective thing to do. High quality early childhood programs have been shown to return $8.60 for every dollar invested.

Staff in quality voluntary home visiting programs, Early Head Start and Head Start Programs, Child Care and Pre-K Programs play critical roles in stimulating healthy brain development to buffer the negative impacts of poverty and produce lifelong benefits for disadvantaged children. But far too few young children get high quality early childhood development and learning supports. Early Head Start, which provides comprehensive services for poor infants and toddlers through home visiting, center-based and family child care serves only an estimated 4 percent of eligible children.

Together, we can and must close these opportunity gaps with urgency and persistence and create a more level playing field enabling all our children to succeed.

We are excited that Robin Hood, a poverty-fighting organization, is launching a new, groundbreaking initiative to build the first Early Learning Metropolis by partnering with organizations all across New York City to ensure every parent, grandparent, caregiver, and child care provider knows the best ways, based on up-to-date research, to spur children’s brain development in the first three years of life.

Research shows that spurring brain development is simple, and impactful. Every moment, no matter how small, is an opportunity to stimulate children’s brains – bath time, meal time, bed time – these every day moments are a chance to stimulate a child’s mind. Anyone can do it – parents, grandparents, caregivers or teachers. It doesn’t require parents to spend money – just attention and love. But imagine how much harder this is if you are living in a homeless shelter or don’t know where your next meal is coming from or feel unsafe and uncertain and lack private bath time or play space to enjoy your children.

Chilean Nobel literature laureate Gabriela Mistral wrote, “We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow.’ His name is today.” From a child’s birth until age three, we have only a thousand days to help build their brains and chart the course for a lifetime of learning, making every day that passes a potential opportunity lost or gained.

So this Mother’s Day, we call on every parent, grandparent, early childhood provider and teacher to be brain builders, helping prepare our youngest children for a bright future. Together, we can change the trajectory of an entire generation of children beginning this year in New York City.

Stories of Mother Love

elease Date: May 6, 2016 

“They didn’t want me to have Walter because of my age. But I finally convinced them that age has nothing to do with love…What I had to give was love. And that’s what Walter needed . . . I never doubted that I could help Walter. Never, if they gave me the chance. If you have the courage and the faith and the strength God will do the rest.”

Mrs. Viola Dees epitomized mother love, and her story has stayed with me since 2000 when 89-year-old Mrs. Dees and her 9-year-old grandson Walter were the subjects of the Academy Award-winning documentary Big Mama. It followed Mrs. Dees’ struggles to keep a promise to her late son and raise Walter in an effort to keep him out of the child welfare system. Mrs. Dees gained custody of Walter when he was 4. His mother was addicted to crack cocaine before he was born and Walter spent time in foster care before he went to live with his grandmother. The documentary shows her determined efforts to fight constant bureaucratic concerns about her age and do everything a growing boy needed, including keeping up with him at the playground and catching his rebounds as he played basketball. In the turmoil and uncertainty after Mrs. Dees suffered a heart attack Walter set fire to their home and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital – yet even then his grandmother stood by him and was heartbroken as he was committed to a residential facility and taken out of her care. I’ve carried that picture of Mrs. Dees with me for these past 16 years, watching him shoot hoops and sticking by him until her end.

Mrs. Dees faced dramatic challenges, but in her love, tenacity, and absolute unconditional dedication to Walter she was far from alone. On Mother’s Day and every day we must remember and celebrate not just birth mothers but grandmothers, adoptive mothers, foster mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, and all those with a mothering spirit who have reached out to raise and care for children who need them and made those children their own.       

More than 5.8 million children are living in households headed by grandparents. Even when parents also live in the home many grandparents assume the parental role. Nearly half of these children are living with grandparents who say they are responsible for their grandchildren, and close to a million have no parent present in the home. More than a third of the 1.6 million grandmothers who say they are responsible for grandchildren are like Mrs. Dees – over 60 years old. So many children have been diverted from the child welfare system to live with a grandparent and sometimes their grandparents are their foster parents or legal guardians.

Grandparents and other relatives often step in because the children’s needs are great and they want to keep their family together. Of the more than 415,000 children in foster care, three quarters are in foster family homes – 29 percent with relatives. Some of these foster mothers and fathers care for children short term – others much longer. Over half of the children adopted in 2014 were adopted by their foster parents. Like all mothers, those stepping into that role need help to offer children unconditional love, permanence, and special services to help children recover from the trauma in their lives.

Congress has taken some important steps to increase support for children being raised by kin and hopefully will do more this year. In 2008, Congress provided funds for Guardianship Assistance Payments for relatives who had cared for children as foster parents for at least six months and were committed to caring for them permanently. The Family First Act being proposed by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, would reach a broader group of children at risk of placement in foster care who could be well cared for by relatives. It would help with time-limited mental health, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and in-home parent support services, and for some, kinship navigator services and short-term financial assistance. And, as an alternative to foster care, funds also would be available to help children remain safely with their birth parents.

My own mother fostered children and finding another child in my room or a pair of my shoes gone was far from unusual. After Daddy died nearly a dozen foster children followed my sister, three brothers and me as we left home for college. Mama always wanted to find ways for the children to return safely home or to find loving adoptive families to care for them permanently. I remember her trying to convince some of my family members to adopt the young beautiful twins she is shown with here. While her family members did not adopt them, a loving stable couple did and they are thriving young adults today.

So as we celebrate mothers and grandmothers, foster mothers, and all those who step in to parent children in need, let’s pledge to take responsibility not only for our own children and grandchildren but for all children or at least for one child who may not be our own. Imagine if every faith congregation in the United States took responsibility to assure a permanent family for just one child, we would be able to assure no children are left in limbo without a permanent family to call their own.

Hope Is Waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court

Release Date: April 29, 2016 

“Baldo came to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, in 1988, when he was 17 years old. He lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife and their two U.S. citizen daughters, ages nine and 13. While in the United States, he trained as an electrician and, for nearly 20 years, worked for the same company installing electrical wiring and residential security systems. He lost his job in March 2014 when his employer discovered that Baldo was undocumented. Baldo’s employer told Baldo that he hated to lose him and that he would like to rehire him as soon as Baldo obtained work authorization. Baldo’s current work as an independent contractor has created financial difficulties for him and his family, as he can no longer rely on a weekly paycheck and cannot count on getting work every week. The lack of a reliable income makes it difficult for Baldo to plan for his family’s financial future.” -Brief filed by immigrants’ rights, civil rights and labor groups in U.S. v. Texas.

The futures of Baldo and his family and millions of other immigrant families are on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision in U.S. v. Texas expected in June. Texas and 25 other states filed a lawsuit in February 2015 to block President Obama’s November 2014 executive action to help keep immigrant families together. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiatives would help parents and young adults remain in the U.S. temporarily to work, further their education, and support their families. Baldo’s story is documented in one of the 19 friend of the court briefs filed on behalf of more than 1,000 organizations and individuals supporting the President’s executive actions.

The Children’s Defense Fund joined 75 other education, health and child advocacy organizations in one of these briefs. The National Immigration Law Center says the multiple briefs in this case “demonstrate the severe, nationwide harm — to millions of individual families, to the safety of our communities, and to local and national economic well-being — produced by the injunction barring implementation of the Obama administration’s DAPA and expanded DACA programs.”

DAPA would allow immigrant parents like Baldo with citizen children to seek protection from deportation, get a work permit, and keep their families together. The brief shares more about his story: “Baldo’s financial difficulties are compounded by his fear of being forced to return to Michoacán, where he has not lived in nearly 30 years. He has heard from family members about kidnappings and other drug cartel-related violence, and would not feel safe returning to Michoacán. Given the risk of harm, he would not want to take his daughters there, but he also would not want to be separated from them.”

An estimated 16 million people in the United States have mixed-status families like Baldo’s. One in five undocumented immigrant adults has a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse and about 3.8 million undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens. Broad documentation shows how deportation can result not only in separation of children from a parent but also food insecurity, challenges in accessing health care, housing instability, and sometimes entry of children into foster care. Families lose the financial stability provided by their formerly employed parent and the local economy suffers lower tax revenue. The very real threat of a parent’s removal is causing millions of U.S. citizen and lawful permanent resident children emotional, psychological, and educational harm. DAPA would allow a parent like Baldo to return to his former job and stay with his family for at least three years without fear of deportation, with the opportunity for renewal.

By expanding DACA, the Department of Homeland Security would offer deferred action to more young people brought to the United States as children before their sixteenth birthday. They must have continuously lived in the U.S. since January 2010 and every day since August 15, 2012, have a high school diploma or equivalent, or be in school. They would have access to important educational opportunities, internships and career and vocation training and have better chances of new jobs and increased earnings. The state of Texas’ injunction prevents an estimated 290,000 people brought to the country as children from applying for DACA.

The friend of the court brief of educators and children’s advocates which CDF joined cites two young women who benefited from the initial DACA initiative. Tonya had dropped out of high school in Arizona, discouraged after her parents returned to Mexico, but DACA gave her an incentive to complete her GED and enroll in a medical assistance training program. With DACA support and the needed identification, college student Jessica was able to volunteer at a hospital, apply for an internship at a medical school, and take the MCAT, hoping to move on to her dream of medical school. With expanded DACA in place more young people like these will be able to pursue education and jobs.

Qualifying for these temporary, renewable deportation deferrals requires people to meet a variety of requirements and pass a criminal background check. In recognition of the benefits for children and families and the economic future of our country, there is very broad support for DAPA and expanded DACA. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia; 116 cities and counties (including Brownsville and Austin, TX, New Orleans, LA, Knoxville, TN, Atlanta, GA, Birmingham, AL, Los Angeles, CA, and New York City), along with the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors; 51 current and former chiefs of police and sheriffs and the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Police Executive Research Forum; 326 immigrants’ rights, civil rights, labor, and social service organizations; a bipartisan group of former members of Congress; 225 current U.S. senators and representatives; and former federal immigration and Homeland Security officials have filed friend of the court briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court.

I hope the U.S. Supreme Court will seize this opportunity to move our nation forward, prevent family break up, end the stressful hardships countless families face, and give hope and stability to millions of families, children, and young adults who would benefit from the President’s executive actions.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, Leviticus 19:33-34 commands, “When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Let all of us break our silence and speak up about the suffering of our sisters and brothers whose family members are at risk of being torn apart by deportation.