“You’re going to see [classmate] today. You should really use sunflower butter,” I say to my kids, who are making “peanut butter” and jelly sandwiches. My older son has a classmate who is severely allergic to nuts, so I’m being cautious.
“Sunflower butter!” my three year old exclaims, not being put off at all by the change in PB&J plans. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have any idea what sunflower butter was, much less accept it out of hand. Yet, for them, switching is perfectly normal.
“I know there’s no guarantees, but this is the group that probably won’t get arrested, right?” I asked our leader as we stood outside of Union Station in Washington DC.
“Yes, that group already left,” he said, smiling. I breathed a sigh of relief. If I was going to get arrested for protesting climate change, I needed to make more accommodations than just getting a half-day off from work.
As someone who has been passionate about climate change for more than a decade, I’ve participated in my share of protests and political actions. Since becoming a mom, I’ve adjusted my participation accordingly. Here’s what I’ve learned about being an activist parent:
“The Myth of Quality Time: How We’re Cheating Our Kids” accused the headline to Newsweek magazine in zillion point font. Kids and parents lined up like hands on a clock. But it differed from most of the parenting articles I read in a key way – it was more than 20 years old.
“I’m not going to be here for dinner tomorrow,” I told my kids. “I’m going to tell the people in charge of the city that I support our neighbors from other countries.” I was going to speak at our city council meeting about a proposed Sanctuary Cities policy. They nodded, then went back to eating dinner. While their interest in local government is pretty low at two and five years old, I hope that I can help get them more involved as they get older.
That’s because local government at the heart of a lot of policies that underlie unjust systems. It’s also a place you can see personal impact. While calling your Congressperson or national representative is important, you can rarely see the same level of individual response and even change that you can on the local level. From climate change to racist policing, getting involved in local government is one of the biggest ways you can teach kids to make a difference.
Here are some ways you can get your kids involved:
“They shouldn’t have given you a time estimate,” the customer service representative said. My eyes narrowed and I resisted the urge to throw the phone across the room. It was 10:30 PM at night. We hadn’t had natural gas service to our house for more than 24 hours. And now this person was telling me that they didn’t have a clue when we would get our heat and hot water back.
This whole thing started two nights earlier, on Super Bowl Sunday. I walked outside to empty the compost when a neighbor walked past me, then doubled-back. Stopping for just a moment, he said, “You know, I smell natural gas on your block.” Sniffing the air, I caught a faint scent of rotten eggs.
Passing by the neon sign reading “Guns” displayed in a Main Street store, a shudder of fear ran through me. “No, I’m safe,” I thought. I thought that in part because a gun store doesn’t automatically equal danger. But mainly I realized it because I became starkly aware of my family’s privilege while traveling.
Traveling with little kids is always A Thing. There’s car sickness, whines of “I’m bored!” and the world’s longest bathroom breaks. On our recent three-hour drive, we stopped no fewer than six times. When traveling, there’s always worries about kids wandering off or touching something dangerous, like a campfire.
But one thing that I never have to worry about is our family being discriminated against.
If my grandmother had come to America today, she might be in a cage right now.
My grandmother immigrated to America when she was just three years old. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather has come over to the United States from Poland a few years before. When they started running out of money, my great-grandmother returned to Poland to get help. But she didn’t realize something very important – she was pregnant. Because America didn’t allow babies into the country, the two of them had to wait three long years before returning to America. Passing through Ellis Island, they finally reunited with my great-grandfather. My grandmother’s first memories are of seeing the Statue of Liberty as they came into the harbor and meeting her father for the first time. She said he was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
Now imagine if they were immigrants today.
The headlines never end. More school shootings. White people putting people of color in danger for merely living. The gap between rich and poor growing ever wider. America having the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world. The 400th straight month of higher-than-normal temperatures from climate change.
There is so much wrong with the world. I am so damn tired from it all. It’s so easy to be.
Unfortunately, no one’s going to come around and fix it. Change starts with us. It’s about radical kindness in your daily life. It’s about standing up and demanding justice and fairness from our policy makers. The political is personal and the personal is political.
When it feels like the world is awful, here are some ways you can make a difference:
Skimming through Pinterest, I’m slightly overwhelmed looking at all of these lovely photographs. Let’s be realistic. I’m a lot overwhelmed.
I squint looking at homesteading blogs, wondering how these women grow all of their own food and make time for their kids. I sigh looking at the “green living” posts with their homemade cleaners. Does it count as green if I just don’t clean at all?
Maybe you feel the same way looking at me. You may think, “How does she find time for all of this stuff?” The answer is that I don’t. Not really.
Personally, here’s how my reality doesn’t come even close to matching my fantasy:
It’s been a full year since Donald Trump became president. A full year since he stood on the National Mall and swore to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” just as Barack Obama had done eight years before. Attending President Obama’s inauguration was one of the most patriotic moments of my life. Instead of attending Trump’s inauguration, I joined with half a million other women in the next day to raise our voices in protest.
Needless to say, I entered Trump’s administration ready to fight. In my Instagram photo from that day, I’m wearing my Wonder Woman shirt, my smirk and stance challenging the camera.
But despite my attitude, I was worried. In fact, I had been worried since I blearily read the results the morning after the election. I was worried for you and even moreso for the many families less privileged than ours. As we’ve seen since then, my worries about the treatment of immigrants, LGBT folks, black people, and poor families were justified. Everything has been as bad as we expected. In some cases, it’s been worse.
And yet.