Mortality has been on my mind. I’m not a particularly lugubrious sort, but just kind of know this is the last third, if I am lucky. So how do I want my kids to remember me? I do not want to be thought of as that nagging parent who wielded a dust-buster in one hand and can of 409 in the other, although that is who I sort of am. It occurred to me that my kids did not know me before I was a Parent. Duh!!, as they would say. They did not know me as the fierce and at times overly dramatic college freshman leading an entire University in a moratorium designed to stop a war in which many of us felt we did not belong . They did not know me as an early-adopter to women’s rights nor witness some of the struggles I had as a television producer, and then executive battling against a male-dominated universe. They did not know me as the person who read about the hundreds of thousands of Chinese female babies either aborted or just abandoned.
They did know me when I victoriously got their father to know that I was serious about the problem in China and elsewhere in the world where females were disregarded as unnecessary. As a life-long feminist it was time to put my money where my mouth was. We did not necessarily have the funds to adopt a child, but off to China we went and arrived home with the “game-changer.”
Now, once again, I am making my stand and going to Washington for the Women’s March on Washington. No, I am not going to burn down a building this time. This is a peaceful march designed to remind Trump that women’s rights are human rights. For a man with an arsenal of wives, girlfriends, daughters, and daughters-in-law you would think he might learn that kind of sensitivity at home. Apparently not. So we will march.
My 89-year old mother, a staunch Hilary supporter who called octogenarians in Pennsylvania, endlessly asked, to what end is this march? The answer is, once an activist, always an activist. We cannot let down our guard. We need to use all peaceful means of making a point. We need to stay on top of our representatives and make them hear our voice. We need to be loud and noisy.
We need to believe that one person can make a difference. We need to believe that banning together can make a bigger difference. Yes, Black lives matter. Of course they matter! So do white lives and Asian lives, and Hispanic lives, and disabled lives.
Of course my kids expected me to go to D.C. They would have it no other way. That is their Mom (I’ll be the one in the red Fedora) who cares deeply about all people. She cares enough to be a dot on the screen but a voice in what matters. No, I will not be carrying my dust buster or 409 with me. I just hope to be a member of the cog that cleans up this mess we made in Washington so you can live a better life.