Not Your Grandpa’s Family Values

by guest columnist Heather Cushman-Dowdee

I am a Democrat. And have proudly been so for as long as I can remember—except for an occasional flirtation with the Green Party and once in the ’90s when I became convinced that libertarianism was the way to go. (I was soon talked out of it by a boyfriend who walked me through a future of giant multinational corporations running rough shod over the rest of us. Yikes!)

So yes, a lefty. Sure. But now I’m a mama too, a stay-at-home mama. A homeschooling mama. Still a lefty, but suddenly I have an understanding of what the term ‘family values’ means. And now, I wonder, “Why in the world has the Republican Party been able to co-opt these values?” I’m not talking about the issues that are mean-spirited or the ones that limit freedoms ( like the Republicans’ views on abortion and gay marriage), but there are family issues that are about freedom and privacy and constitutional rights that would—no, strike that—should be an essential part of the Democratic platform. I’m assuming the reason these issues aren’t on our platform is that most Democrats haven’t really thought about them, but if they knew, these issues would be ours. Here are just a few of them:

Birth Choices: Beyond the right to choose whether or not to have a baby, how about where, when and how to have a baby? Throughout history and around the world, homebirth is the norm. It’s only here in our Westernized culture, under the guidance of doctors organizations, for-profit hospitals and pharmaceutical and Insurance companies, that birth is seen as a sickness and a major medical event. Caesarean sections are on the rise (in Brazil the rate is up to 80 percent, here in the U.S. it’s hitting 30 percent and climbing); did you ever wonder why? Is it because collectively women have forgotten how to give birth, lost the ability, the bravery? Or might it have something to do with the cooperatively drugged mama, the convenience of a birth that is planned, and the amount of money everyone stands to make from surgery? Wonder to yourself why midwives are sitting in jail right now and ask, “Why isn’t the freedom to birth a progressive principle?”

Breastfeeding: Breastmilk naturally meets the nutritional needs of the baby. But in our world, the pressure to feed your baby formula—in the form of advertising done by giant pharmaceutical and food companies, the promotion done by doctors and other caregivers, and the economic reality that faces young families who find it impossible to survive on one income—is often too much to fight against. And if you do breastfeed, just try to do it in public. People sneer, managers ask you to move along, police officers write tickets. Here’s what Democrats need to back: a curb on the ceaseless marketing of infant formula, as if profit were more important than health. And for the babies—we should repeal the nudity laws too.

Homeschooling: Let’s consider the rise of homeschooling for a second. Homeschoolers are talked about as if they’re isolationist, nut job right-wingers with a penchant for racism and fundamentalism. Sure, some of them are, but have you heard about the many, many progressive families that are homeschooling too? The last census suggests that the breakdown of political affiliation within the homeschooling movement is more like the overall public, which would of course mean that there are more Dems homeschooling than most people care to acknowledge. And it’s not isolationist, it’s civilized and urban and rural, grassroots and open-ended, it utilizes libraries, computers and community classes—it’s actually a truly innovative and mind-expanding experience. So really, it’s time for Democrats to embrace the idea of school choice and allow for a free market of ideas. Repeat after me, “The Founding Fathers were homeschooled; if it’s good enough for them…”

These family values are freedoms that include health, life, and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s join these with our already progressive platform to take back the Congress and take it back well. Imagine the Campaign: Democrats fight for families! Fair wages! Birth choices! People over corporations! The right to choose your education! Freedom from government tyranny! The integrity of our bodies is sacrosanct! Our choices are our own! Families of all kinds have the right to be! And really, if women are able to publicly breastfeed their babies in peace, then they finally have the right to be topless. Really, how could we lose?

Want to read more?
The Caesarean by Michel Odent
Milk Money and Madness by Naomi Baumslag and Dia L. Michels
Teach Your Own: the John Holt book of Homeschooling by John Holt and Pat Farenga