By Claire Louge, Executive Director
I met some cool new colleagues at a leadership training last month. When we traded facts about our lives and work, something came up that sometimes does.
As we discussed the challenges parents face, and our work supporting people raising children, a couple of people mentioned they didn’t have kids.
The way they said it implied a hidden question. It’s a question I’ve heard before: Am I a credible advocate for families if I don’t have my own children?
I became a mom at age 35 after working in the field of child and family wellbeing for over a decade. Before I had my daughter, I remember wondering
the same thing. Can I be an effective parent educator? Can I be a champion for families if I don’t have the lived experience of being a child’s primary caregiver? Do I even know what I’m talking about?
So I want to put these questions to rest in case you need to hear this: Yes. Emphatically yes. You don’t have to have kids to care about kids, or to support people who raise them. There is a place for you in the movement to support children and families.
No matter the important reason why you don’t have children, we need your help in organizing our society so that all kids have what they need. In fact, your devotion for making things better for children and families makes this movement even more influential.
Because you’re signaling that the way children grow up affects you, and affects everyone. That there’s actually no such thing as ‘other people’s children’. Child well-being is genuinely a shared responsibility, and the conditions we’re creating now, and the support we give (or don’t give) to families, shape what’s possible for all of us.
You get this. That’s why you’re here.
You don’t need to be a parent to successfully support families. But there is one quality you need, whether you’re raising kids or not. That quality is humility.
Before I had my daughter, I remember preaching messages about things like safe sleep, discipline, or self-care. These were sound messages, but when I look back, they lacked the context for how challenging living by those recommendations actually is. Humility is the understanding that what is ideal is almost impossible to achieve in real life. Humility is understanding that people are always the experts in their own lives. You can equip them with knowledge, but the trek is theirs to make. Telling someone they need good hiking boots is different than climbing the mountain.
Your guidance, skills, and advocacy, offered humbly, are valuable and needed.
There is a place for you, your experiences, and your values in the movement to make Arizona – and our whole nation – a great place to have a family and be a child. The way children grow up impacts all of us. You don’t need to have kids to care. Thank you for caring.