Who cares about mathematics education?

In the past two decades, teaching and outreach have come to hold an expected place in more missions of mathematics departments and organizations. Still, there is more to do as a mathematical sciences community for mathematics education and mathematics educators to be fully included. This essay, published in the AWM Newsletter, demonstrates the prevalence of mathematics education in mathematics departments, and then discusses the variously supportive and unsupportive climates that mathematics educators experience in mathematics departments. The essay describes fractious, fragile, and fertile environments in mathematics departments.