Save the American Time Use Survey!

Dear Mothers and Those Who Care About Mothers:

Have you ever heard the philosophical question “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  Many have pondered the answer to this question for centuries.  Some have made it a complicated scientific question, but at the heart of it is a question of perception; meaning, if one can actually see, hear, touch or measure something, they are more inclined to understand that it is real.

That question came to mind when we heard that funding for the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) may be cut from the 2009 federal budget.
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ATUS at a Glance

Get your questions answered about what the ATUS is, what it is used for, and why you should care if it goes away.

Sign our letter supporting the American Time Use Survey

Send a clear message to Washington that you want your unpaid caregiving work counted!  Add your signature to our letter supporting the ATUS and see the VisiMoms that have been created in honor of the mothers that have added their names.

Contact Your U.S. House Representatives & U.S. Senators

Thank you for adding your name to our letter – the more signatures, the more impact the letter will have!  Now help with the most impactful statement you can make, send a personal letter to your district’s Representative in the US House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.  Highlight and copy this personal letter and find out who represents you in Washington, D.C. by putting your zip code into the top left box at www.Congress.org.  Once you have your list of representatives, you can choose to “Compose your own message” and send it to all of your representatives simultaneously!

The process is a lot easier than it sounds and the most effective way of letting your voice be heard in Washington.  Please take a few minutes to complete this important step!

Cutting the ATUS Increases Invisimomibility

Invisimomibility is a chronic, pervasive condition in which mother’s unpaid caregiving work is undervalued, leading to an inability to successfully fulfill one’s caregiving, civic and paid work responsibilities and leaving primary caregivers vulnerable to social and economic risk.

In order to increase awareness about Invisimomibility during our Mother's Day Campaign, Mothers & More chapters are going out into their communities to connect with mothers wherever they can.  These chapters will be armed with InvisiMoms, (life-sized, washed-out versions of our online VisiMoms), designed to help us make the value of all the work mothers do more visible.  Through her, mothers can see how they spend their time on a typical day as a mom and how they feel about that time.  They can also see what other moms do and how they feel about it.  The activity only takes a few minutes, but goes a long way towards eliminating Invisimomibility. 

Learn More

• Mothers & More’s Forum article, “Making Mothers Count: New Economic Statistics May Help Unpaid Caregiving Become Visible,” by Margaret McLaughlin, January/February 2004.
• U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey
• "Time-use survey cast off in Bush's budget" by Virginia Rutter, guest columnist for The Daily News Tribune, Waltham, MA