Welfare Mothers Voice

Spring 1999

Mothers Demand to be Valued EVERY DAY

         Mothers and grandmothers from all corners of the world and walks of life crammed into Crossroads Women's Centre with partners, children and other relatives and friends. Even the Mayor and Mayoress of Camden came to celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday 14 March 1999. It was an occasion to value the enormous contribution of mothers to families, communities, society and the economy, which is ignored the other 364 days of the years.
         Pensioner Selma James, founder of the Wages for Housework Campaign which jointly organised the event with Single Mothers' Self-Defense (SMSD), was thanked for the years of caring work she has done for women at the Centre.
         Kim Sparrow from SMSD said that far from being "workless" single mothers do a 24-hour-a-day job in difficult circumstances. She protested against government cuts which also attack pensioners. Grandmothers--also seen as "workless"--are being told to look after their grandchildren so single mothers can be forced off benefits and into low-waged jobs.
         A number of rape victims who are seeking asylum with the help of the Black Women's Rape Action Project attended. One of them, a single mother of two, described the horrendous working day she must keep to feed her children and pay her legal bill. She works from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. doing two shifts in a residential care home for very low wages. A Native American mother thanked the woman who helps raised her son thus making her double day possible.
         Women with disabilites thanked their mothers for their caring work and raised that mothers who themselves have disabilities are seen as people to be cared for rather than who care for others.
         Mothers' work for justice was highlighted. Tina Gifford spoke of the hardship of leaving her children behind in order to fight the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Her husband, human rights lawyer Lord Gifford QC, committed himself to continue supporting the Centre's anti-sexist and anti-racist work. Adriana Aranda from the Chile Committee Against Impunity spoke about being tortured in front of her son, and about the daily picket which is pressing for the extradition of dictator Pinochet to Spain so he can be tried for genocide. Grandmother Teresa Hulme moved the audience to tears when she descried the police refusal to catch the murderer of her daughter who worked as a prostitute to support the young son she is now raising. A message was received from Maureen Church who lost her son in the Hillsborough disaster. And from pensioner Reg Dawson’s young daughter who misses her mother who is in jail following a miscarriage of justice--she defended herself against a violent ex-partner.
         A message from Sarah Keays, who is fighting a gagging order by Tory ex-Minister Cecil Parkinson to prevent any mention of her daughter, read: "Mother's Day provides a day for us to be appreciated, then disregarded. Every day should be Mother's Day, an Anti-Racism Day and an Anti-Discrimination of All Kinds Day."
         All agreed that whether single or with a partner, auntie, big sister, granny, adoptive, stepmother or lesbian...mothering is a 24-hour job. Nina Lopez-Jones, chairing, called for a change in policies which value killing more than giving and caring for life: “while over $500 billion worldwide go to military budgets, only $20 billion go to basic water and sanitation, healthcare and education. That's why there's no money for women and children!”

Reprinted from The Greater London Pensioner
Monthly Newsletter of: Wages for Housework Campaign and
Single Mothers Self Defense
Call 0171-482-2496 London, England

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