ADAPT asks for the First Ladies to support MiCASSA

Long-Term Care in America is a Women’s Issue

By Judy Neal

Marva Ways sings to ADAPT at the White House

(WASHINGTON DC) While millions of Americans honored their mothers today with candy and flowers, 500 disability rights activists marched to the White House to present Laura and Barbara Bush with a special mother’s Day card. The ADAPT card did not contain the usual maudlin greeting, but rather acknowledged the 1.2 million women in this country who are spending Mother’s Day behind the doors of a nursing home.

“A nursing home is not a nice way to treat your mother,” said Cassie James, a mother from England. “What the hell is wrong with our society that we throw people away like that?”

ADAPT asked the current and former first ladies to use their influence to encourage the passing of MiCASSA so that women with disabilities could have the choice to celebrate Mother’s Day in their own homes.

“Liberty must be everywhere or it is nowhere,” said Linda Anthony, a mother dressed as the Statute of Liberty. “This is about the three-quarters of women being in nursing homes and three-quarters of caregivers that are women.”

ADAPT read the card to the first-ladies aloud and lined the street facing the White House and listened as Marva Ways and Anita Cameron sang lyrics written for the occasion. The peaceful and powerful ADAPT demonstration lasted less than an hour, but carried a message with a long reaching impact.

“If we don’t get MiCASSA passed,” said Barbara Bounds, a mother from Memphis ADAPT, “I hope I don’t live to be put in a nursing home.”

Most individuals with disabilities are dependent on care given by unpaid (or “informal”) caregivers. A 1996 AARP-National Alliance for Caregiving national survey of caregivers reported that 80% informal caregivers are women, working an average of 18 hours a week for no pay, with 20% working 40 or more hours each week.

“I didn’t know that so many women were in nursing homes,” said Pat Pugh a mother from Memphis ADAPT. “We are not paying mothers the respect they deserve, especially today, on Mother’s Day.”

Among the many chants heard during the ADAPT marches, there was a new one today: “Help Mother’s Celebrate, Let Them Live at Home.”

“Every Mother’s Day, I’m reminded that I’m another year older and not as able to do for myself,” said Marva Ways a mother, grandmother and ADAPT Organizer from Detroit. “I don’t want to be another grandmother who falls victim to this throw-away society of ours. We deserve better than that. That is why I will be right up front when ADAPT delivers its Mother’s Day wish to Laura and Barbara Bush, asking for their support of MiCASSA, the ‘Gift of Freedom,’ for all American women.”

-Judy Neal