Is it just me or does every day feel like it’s repeating itself over and over (and over) again? It’s like the movie Groundhog’s Day, where Bill Murray’s character is forced to wake up and repeat the exact same day, day after day, except instead of a gopher, I have a toddler. 

Like just last week, I woke up to begin my workday AND my day as a toddler mom. While in the bathroom half-asleep, I heard a light crash. By the time I rushed to the kitchen, I saw that my groundhog, I mean toddler, had successfully smashed his way through a closed baby gate, breaking an entire carton of eggs onto the kitchen floor and was now gleefully playing in an ocean of salmonella. What a way to start a morning. 

In retrospect, I can laugh at this because I’m already dead inside. But seriously I don’t know how we (yes you and I and millions of parents and caregivers across the nation) have been handling this. Because to me, every day just feels like a rinse and repeat operation. 

I gave birth at the very beginning of the pandemic. My son was born a day or two before our Governor here in New Jersey shut down the entire state due to COVID. My son is literally as old as this pandemic. Through that time, like many parents and caregivers, I hot-mess navigated through this time with virtual learning for almost a year with my oldest son, a kindergartener, while concurrently raising a baby AND working from home. Every day began to kind of mash together. 

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how WE'VE done it. 

I know for many of us, it feels like we’re barely hanging on. The infuriating thing though, is that we don’t NEED to live this way. The U.S House passed the Build Back Better plan that is helping to end this Groundhog Day cycle for so many of our families! This bill would pass life-saving measures for families like extending the Child Tax Credit payments, solving the child care crisis, guaranteeing paid family and medical leave when your family needs it, making home-and community-based services for the elderly and those with disabilities more affordable, lowering the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs, and more.  

But EVERY Republican Senator and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is refusing to support this. This is why we are asking you to TAKE ACTION to raise your voice and tweet a photo (like the one above) to tell and show the holdouts in the US Senate that we are sick and tired of living Groundhog’s Day and we need the life-changing support to finally end this infuriating cycle. Here’s  what you can do:

1. Take a photo of your very own Groundhog Day moment (whether it be broken eggs, spilled milk, a sharpied wall, an unholy mess of toys everywhere, or honestly whatever hot mess moment works!) and tweet it out with why you need #BuildBackBetter to pass now! Make sure to tag @momsrising along with the hashtag #SolveChildCare so we can be sure to see and share it. If you’re not on Twitter then you can email your photo and why #BuildBackBetter needs to pass to nadia@momsrising.org.
2. CLICK TO TAKE ACTION now to tell holdout U.S. Senators that we are tired of living in a perpetual Groundhog Day cycle!
3. CLICK HERE to further let out your frustration by calling our rage line and using your RAGE YELLS to tell the holdouts in the U.S. Senate to just get Build Back Better done already! 

In “Groundhog’s Day”, the main character finally solved his unending days of deja vu by performing good deeds for the community. The holdout U.S. Senators need to do the right thing and vote to pass Build Back Together, they need to do this good deed so that we can finally wake up to a new day. A new day where our families are thriving, parents and caregivers feel supported, care providers are fairly compensated, and where eggs stay in the frying pan, where they belong.