The conference provides child-care rooms for parents and their children.

London — The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) describes itself as “an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations.” Predictably, the content of the speeches over the three-day conference here leans right-wing, complete with encouraging calls for a revival of faith and traditional values. But not only are panelists offering pro-family rhetoric onstage as they raise concerns about abysmal fertility rates, the conference itself has cultivated a family-friendly environment by providing child-care rooms for parents and their children.

ARC partnered with Nipperbout, a business in the United Kingdom that provides child care, chaperoning, and entertainment services for events. The two rooms run by Nipperbout at the conference venue aren’t just empty closets where a parent can bring a crying kid to avoid disturbing the general audience members. Instead, the designated areas are elaborate play zones stocked with toys, costumes, games, and crafts. One large room is for kids up to age ten; the second room is a nursery that includes a changing station, a breastfeeding area, and lots of clean blankets on the ground where tikes under two crawl around. And the child-care rooms at ARC seem to be popular with parents and children alike.

One mother, who is feeding her one-year-old son oranges in the nursery, tells me that she hadn’t expected any lavish accommodations; she had received an email a few days before ARC began that announced their space dedicated to child services, and she assumed there’d just be a changing table. She was pleasantly surprised to see the rooms once she arrived, and she’s visited the nursery with her son throughout the day for some quiet downtime. It is also useful to have an enclosed space because her son is a reputable “escape artist.” She tells me that the nursery room has certainly improved her experience at the conference.

A mother from Europe tells me she was “apprehensive” to attend the ARC conference with her daughter, who is almost four months old. Before arriving, she had wondered whether there would be any private spaces, and she worried whether she would have to “be feeding her on the toilet floor.” But she says participating in the conference has been nowhere near as difficult as she had imagined. She uses the nursery room for breastfeeding, and to let her daughter lie down on the floor to stretch out so she isn’t being held for hours on end. She does note areas for improvement: Some of the chairs in the venue’s main hall are small and tightly packed together, so it makes it difficult to fit her baby without nudging a neighbor. Similarly, the main hall doesn’t have a designated area reserved to park a stroller. Still, given the child-friendly accommodations, the mother says she would certainly encourage other families — even new mothers — to attend in the future. She looks around the nursery and says happily: “This is ideal.”

I watch a few of the children briefly as they color and fashion some sort of papier-mâché craft. They seem happy, entirely oblivious to the fact that there’s a massive conference with political celebrities occurring just downstairs. One mother, who was sitting against the wall with her smartphone as her child was drawing, tells me that the child-care rooms made the conference easier and more enjoyable. “There’s no way they could have played games in that dark lecture hall,” she says in reference to the main theater. Although the child-care rooms don’t have any screens, she has joined the conference livestream from her phone to hear the presentations as her child delighted in the play zone.

“ARC’s provision of child-care facilities at a conference focused on motherhood and family is commendable,” Erica Komisar, a keynote speaker at ARC, tells me. Indeed, every parent I’ve spoken with seems to appreciate the rooms, and they further express hope that more professional events will adopt similar accommodations. It seems that the ARC conference isn’t just interested in seeing families grow; it is taking steps to cultivate a family-friendly society. Komisar says the arrangement “demonstrates a commitment to aligning actions with words, allowing parents to engage fully in the conference while knowing their children are well-cared for.”