About Walk a Day in My Shoes
When’s the last time you felt a politician understood what it’s like to work and raise a family in America?
The family in Minneapolis—with a mom working as a nursing assistant by day and a father as a school custodian at night because they can’t afford child care. They can’t remember the last time they had dinner as a family.
The single mom in Miami who worries about how she will care for her aging mother. She can barely support herself and her son on her paycheck cleaning office buildings downtown. How will she pay for medication or the home care worker her mother needs?
The daughter of a security officer in Columbus who dreams of becoming a nurse but whose crumbling public school and skyrocketing college costs stand like a mountain between her and her dreams.
The home care worker in Seattle who should be enjoying his retirement. Instead, he’s forced to keep working because he couldn’t raise a family and save enough for retirement at the same time.
Our jobs might all be different, our homes might be in different places—but we all share a common bond—we work hard everyday to raise our families and provide services to our communities.
We juggle work, child care, bills, PTA meetings, second jobs, caring for aging parents, soccer practice, and everything else we try to cram in from the time our alarm clock goes off in the morning to when we hit our pillows at night.
“My day with Senator Obama was one I’ll never forget – and I hope he never forgets it as well. Now he understands how important the homecare program is to those we care for – that our work makes it possible for folks to live in their own homes surrounded by all of their memories. He experienced firsthand the struggles homecare workers have on the job and at home just trying to make ends meet.”Pauline Beck, SEIU member and homecare worker
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That means spending time at home and on the job with SEIU members, standing up for workers uniting to form unions to win a voice on the job, and listening to the concerns workers have about their lives and their children’s future.
Because if politicians experience firsthand what it’s like to work and raise a family today, then they can go back to the Mayor’s Office or the Senate floor and enact real change for working families.
Then maybe we can spend a little less time worrying about health care or our retirement and spend more time raising our families. Maybe we can quit that second job to be at more school concerts and basketball games. And maybe we can create a new American Dream to ensure our kids never have to face the same struggles we did.