Politicians, activists target organized parents as influential interest group.
Empowering Parents: The Rise of Mama Bears
Parents are a sizable group, steadily accounting for more than 60 million of the population in recent decades. But the numerous demographic subsets make parents an unlikely interest group when race, socioeconomic status, geography, and other factors are better hot-button issues.
Until, that is, about two weeks ago, when nearly every notable Republican 2024 presidential candidate attended a Philadelphia Moms for Liberty summit to campaign, and people took notice.
“What we’ve seen across this country,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on June 30, “in recent years is awakening the most powerful political force in this country, Mama Bears, and they’re ready to roll.”
Perhaps two election cycles ago, “parental rights” fights were hyperlocal, at least for the parents. It would be about a specific school where parents witnessed discipline issues, poor academic performance in a specific district, or anecdotes of age-inappropriate curriculum surfacing here and there. Rarely was it a national effort, and certainly not an organized one.
Then the pandemic hit, schools closed physically and took education online, and children were attending classes right in sight of their parents. It created the perfect storm.
‘More Eyes Are on Public Education’
Shortly after the summit, Moms for Liberty dismissed a slew of accusations and labels thrown their way by a bevy of detractors. It was nothing new; organization co-founder Tina Descovich said both positive and negative press has followed the organization since day one. Plus, both co-founders were embattled moms who ran and served on their children’s school boards long before Moms for Liberty came about.
The organization is not politically affiliated in any way, said Ms. Descovich. “We’re a non-partisan organization,” she said. “We accept moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, [and] community members that are concerned about education in America.”
The group has no partisan policy ask either. “One of the biggest things the federal government can do is return authority back to states and local school districts for a lot of the decisions that need to be made for education,” Ms. Descovich said.
Moms for Liberty handles its business much the same way, organizing monthly training sessions for all chapter leaders but leaving it to each locale to decide what is right for them. The number of reasons people have wanted to start a chapter is nearly as many as the number of chapters themselves. Sure there are similar issues across the nation, such as tax referendums or a textbook that’s used across several states, which is where the members benefit from having a nationwide network with which to share knowledge, but the focus is on local communities working together to find local solutions, Ms. Descovich explained.
The Philadelphia summit’s speaker list came about like the last one: the organization surveyed members, asked whom they wanted to hear from, and invited the most-requested speakers. The organization had also extended invitations to President Joe Biden and Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but the former did not respond, and the latter had to cancel due to a scheduling conflict. This wasn’t the first
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