A Quick Thanks for Mother's Day

 This Sunday we honor the 83 million moms in America on Mother’s Day.  We owe our Moms our lives and our thanks.  Mother’s Day also turns our attention to our children and the need for more focus on them.  Unfortunately, families with children receive a dwindling share for federal expenditures. Scholars Eugene Steuerle and Adam Carasso have found that between 1960 and 2005, federal spending on children declined from 20.1 percent of the domestic budget to just 15.4 percent, while non-child Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending soared from 22.1 percent to 45.9 percent.  This is not good for the development of our future generation.

It is within families that many Americans find the support and love to live their lives with joy.  Many Americans work increasingly hard and it is within families that they experience unconditional love and support in times of trouble.  For couples that do not have children, nuclear and extended families provide critical emotional support.  In a variety of emotional and psychological ways, families enhance the lives of millions of Americans.  And through children, mothers help ensure our future.

Let’s thank our mothers for all they do to make our families what they are.

Let’s let Mother’s Day be a wake-up call for us to invest more in our children.  

Rev. Gray directs the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program.