Politicians, Activists Eye Parents as Massive Interest Group as Parents Start to Organize

All major Republican presidential candidates attend a Moms for Liberty summit

Parents gather in mass to express their concerns for mandatory vaccine mandates for their children at the Placentia Yorba Linda Unified School District building in Placentia, Calif., on Oct. 12, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Parents are a sizable group, accounting for more than 60 million of the U.S. population in recent decades. But the numerous demographic subsets make parents an unlikely interest group when race, socioeconomic status, geography, and other factors are better hot-button issues.

Until, that is, about two weeks ago, when nearly every notable Republican 2024 presidential candidate attended a Philadelphia Moms for Liberty summit to campaign, and people took notice.

“What we’ve seen across this country in recent years has awakened the most powerful political force in this country, Mama Bears, and they’re ready to roll,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on June 30.

Perhaps two election cycles ago, parental rights fights were hyperlocal, at least for the parents. It would be about a specific school in which parents had witnessed disciplinary issues, poor academic performance in a specific district, or anecdotes of age-inappropriate curriculum surfacing here and there. Rarely was it a national effort, and it was certainly not an organized one.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, schools closed physically and took education online, and children were attending classes right in sight of their parents. It created the perfect storm.

‘More Eyes Are on Public Education’

Shortly after the summit, Moms for Liberty dismissed a slew of accusations and labels thrown its way by a bevy of detractors. It was nothing new; organization co-founder Tina Descovich said that both positive and negative press has followed the organization since day one. Plus, both co-founders were embattled moms who had run for and served on their children’s school boards long before Moms for Liberty came about.

The organization isn’t politically affiliated in any way, according to Ms. Descovich.

“We’re a nonpartisan organization,” she said. “We accept moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, [and] community members that are concerned about education in America.”

The group has no partisan policy agenda, she said.

“One of the biggest things the federal government can do is return authority back to states and local school districts for a lot of the decisions that need to be made for education,” Ms. Descovich said.

Moms for Liberty handles its business in much the same way, organizing monthly training sessions for all chapter leaders but leaving it to each locale to decide what’s right for them to pursue. The number of reasons that people have wanted to start a chapter is nearly as many as the number of chapters themselves, she said.

When it comes to similar issues across the nation, such as tax referendums or a textbook that’s used across several states, members benefit from having a nationwide network with which to share knowledge, Ms. Descovich said. But the focus is on local communities working together to find local solutions.

The Philadelphia summit’s speaker list was a result of the same democratic process that the group used for its last summit. The organization surveyed members, asking whom they wanted to hear from, then invited the most-requested speakers. The organization had also extended invitations to President Joe Biden and Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but Mr. Biden didn’t respond, and Mr. Kennedy had to cancel because of a scheduling conflict. This wasn’t the first time that Moms for Liberty shared a stage with campaigning candidates; politicians have rightly taken note that parents have begun to organize.

The group, formed in January 2021, now has 300 chapters across the country; that’s an average of roughly a new chapter about every three days since its inception. Growth has been steady, voluntary, and not fueled by any one issue, according to Ms. Descovich. The first New York chapter opened because of the forced masking of children. Expansion to California started because parents were trying to keep the schools open.

Being a nearly all-volunteer organization, Moms for Liberty doesn’t even fund school board races except in Florida, she said. Of the 500 candidates whom the group endorsed last year, 275 won.

“But what we found in places even where we lost the school board races, like Dutchess County, New York, had three times higher turnout for the school board election [than] they'd ever had,” Ms. Descovich said. “So, for us, that’s a win because more eyes are on public education. Together we can work as communities to improve public education.”

‘Change on the Horizon’

Kimberly Ells, author of “The Invincible Family“ and policy adviser for Family Watch International, said parents’ political capital will only grow in upcoming election cycles until attacks on families have been abated. Yet the once-disparate group that’s coming together still won’t function the way that other political interests groups do ”because their investment is greatest and their motives are most pure," Ms. Ells said.

They might not band together around a specific policy item and use it as a rallying cry to advance a certain agenda, but they'll defend against policies and entities that continue to encroach on their right to parent, she said.

“When parents advocate for their own children, they are not campaigning for reelection; they are fighting for the souls of their kids, which is the ultimate fight,” Ms. Ells told The Epoch Times. “The stewardship of parents over their children—which is motivated by love, not money or power—is the most powerful force on earth.

“Political entities who target parents are waking a sleeping giant, and the fight will not be pretty.

“Right now, in this moment, we see the moms and dads of the world starting to understand their own power and beginning to wield it. The power of parents is unstoppable. As parents step into their own power, there is change on the horizon, and the future—despite the immediate gloom—looks glorious.”