My mother has never been the most political person in our family. Pregnant with me at 18-years of age, her life was preoccupied with things like bassinets and receiving blankets instead of the economy and war.
However it was my mother who wrote the note to my high school principal on MY 18th birthday excusing me from class so I could go register to vote.
It was also my mother who encouraged me to get involved in anything and everything regardless of what our Catholic neighborhood shunned or what our relatives said.
She has always voted, but it has been this election that has her arguing back at my aunt who calls to rag on Democrats or my uncle who makes fun of the candidates. It is this election she rings me during the ABC debate to YELL about flagpins and other ‘really stupid’ questions.
I LOVE that my Mom calls to talk about the election much more vocally than she has EVER done. More importantly, she is CONFIDENT in what she says and debates.
Makes me proud.
My mother’s political influence has always been one of support for my beliefs and has turned into a dual education on policy and issues. Her political world has been expanded by mine, but I am reminded at how very different our 18th birthdays were-and how far we’ve come.
As part of ACORN’s‘I Remember Mama Voting’ project BlogHers and others are weighing in this Mother’s Day.
Contributing Editor Kim Pearson writes, “But the most important political lessons were about my African legacy. She showed me South Africa, told me about apartheid, and said, ‘Always remember, we will never be free until South Africa is free.’ She introduced me to real Africans, made sure I read about the new countries emerging, and about their efforts to press their cause at the United Nations. All of this while we tracked each success and failure of the civil rights struggle, and talked about whether black women had any business getting involved in feminism.”
Contributing Editor Suzanne Reisman says, “My mom is not as involved in political causes as I am, but my family has always been Democrats surrounded by a Republican community. I just always knew that Republicans were not for us, although when I was older, I remember overhearing my father telling our neighbor a bizarre joke about my mom voting for Ronald Reagan because she thought Jimmy Carter had bad legs. I was utterly horrified at the thought. How could my mom vote for a Republican?!?! Fortunately, when I asked her about it, she had no idea what I was talking about, but it was my first exposure to the stereotypical notion that women don’t vote on the issues, but rather on a candidate’s attractiveness. I thought that was the dumbest thing any woman could do, and swore I would follow my mom’s example and always vote for the candidate who would help ‘the people.’ Thanks, Mom!”
Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan writes, “I remember the first political discussion I ever had with my mother. We had been in a waiting room with many magazines, and I was too young to read any of them, but I did notice covers with horribly graphic photos of men at war. It happened to be towards the end of the Vietnam War, and I asked my mother, ‘Why is there war?’ She told me that people don’t want to be at war, the leaders of the countries make the wars. That was when I realized women were not in positions of political power. Then I said, ‘We should make women the leaders of all the countries in the world, and then there would never be any wars.’ My mother told me that sounded like a good idea, but it probably would never happen. My response was, ‘Then those men leaders who want a war, should fight it themselves.’ I didn’t understand then, and I still don’t understand today, how war solves any problems, neither does my mother.”
Rontun writes, “No, I don’t have any photographic evidence to prove that Satan’s inferno suddenly has been transformed into a winter wonderland, nor am I meaning to suggest that the threat of global warming has abated. But it’s evident to me that there has been a climate shift of cosmic proportions.
Let me explain. My mother, an octogenarian who’s voted Republican her entire life except in 1960 when she elected to support JFK because he shared her Roman Catholic faith, revealed to me on the telephone yesterday that she’s voting in Kentucky’s upcoming primary for Barack Obama!
This is no minor transformation, and it began as a direct consequence of the Bush administration’s war policies combined with the emergence in power of the evangelical community.”
L.K. Campbell says, “One of the biggest political arguments that I remember between Mama and Daddy happened during the 1972 presidential campaign. Daddy never voted for a Republican. If our German shepherd dog ran against the Republican incumbent, Lady would’ve gotten Daddy’s vote.
When he announced his intention to vote for George McGovern, Mama couldn’t believe it. Even though she was a registered Democrat, she was way too conservative to vote for McGovern.
‘You mean to tell me that you’re going to vote for that hippie-loving radical?’ she asked.”
Many of us in some way, shape, or form have been influenced by our mother’s or grandmother’s or stepmother’s or a friend’s mother’s political voice. Share your story this Mother’s Day-and don’t forget to vote. Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain blog.
*cross posted at blogher.com for the letter to my body exercise*
I get to step out of my news role today for BlogHer.com and participate in the “Letter to My Body” initiative.
This “Letter to My Body” thing is tough. I say that having spent the past few weeks reading letters to bodies across the blogosphere from women like myself struggling to make amends or remembering to praise this vessel which encases us.
BlogHer CE Deb Roby points to some fantastic “letters” to help get my feet wet in the exercise, Deb tells me “A letter that begins like this is going to be honest and entertaining:” a bit of Katie girl writes, “i’m sorry about the cake mix but i just can’t give it up. i know you keep suggesting that i add an egg or some oil…at least a little water, but i can’t give it up. dry funfetti is my refuge and you are just going to have to deal with the consequences. …. i feel you sometimes underneath the dregs of that long-ago failure. stirring. begging to be freed. how can we do that again? how will i find you? who is going to save us this time?”
And if that were not powerful enough, Deb then points me to an entire YouTube series on “Dear Body” which started with a video from MeMeMolly
So with all that in mind-here goes mine:
Dear Body, ( a parody of this post as seen through my life with an ample chest)
This is a very hard letter for me to write, so please bear with me.
I’d like to ask you, with all due respect and humility, to step down as my body.
Please understand this is not because I believe you can not or should not be my body. Please understand that I find you qualified, capable, and worthy. Please also understand I want nothing more than to see a your reflection in the mirror as I write about who will become the leader of the free world. I would be pleased and honored if you were that reflection.
However I am finding, right or wrong, many citizens of this country seem to react to you on an emotional level. Emotional, not practical. They can’t seem to see your freckles. They can’t seem to see your perfect wrists. They just see or read about your “tits” and venom or praise spews.
I thought that with your brain power, would come reason. I thought that you would be able to get a fair shake by bosses, by dates, by sexists, and by soccer moms. I thought over time people would begin to see that you really are an effective human being.
I was wrong.
Tonight, I’m typing as I watch you get ready for a party in Sonoma, California. I’m sad. There really is no other way to put it-I’m sad.
I truly believed you would be the best person for the job, and I had this nagging thought in the back of my mind that is now at the forefront: your large tits divide this country.
It’s not fair. It’s not right. And under just about ANY other circumstance I would go to the mat for you. However we are a wounded and deeply divided nation. We are a nation that praises young women in bikinis while denying equal pay to those in lab coats. We are a nation at odds with each-other as we push padded bras for our 7-year olds and Bratz dolls in halter tops to our 4-year olds. It’s ugly. I thought you could get people past it. I really did.
When I told myself it was gender that got people going, I refrained from asking and wanting you to step aside. Simply on principle, I wanted to see you be big boobed and smart because they said it couldn’t be done. Because it was my belief, this was all about being a girl.
It’s not, and I was wrong.
I firmly believe while the gender issue has given you a handicap I hope we all one day overcome, it is NOT the reason people have a gut reaction to you or your god given jugs.
In the end it’s media and it’s way of pushing that ’sex sells.’
I wanted you and those knockers to be lifted and shoved together and in a lowcut shirt because for some reason they still get people very riled up, and not in the good way.
I really hate asking you to do this, but I want you to please step down and put on a better bra. One with less padding and a shirt not cut quite so low.
We’ve been too sex-crazed for too long and your boobs and your name brings a suitcase of anger to the blogging front door.
It is this time in history your nation needs you.
Our nation and it’s people need you to do what is best for this country. We need you to be true to what you say on your blog that nudity and sexuality should not affect one’s ability to be heard or NOT heard.
If you firmly believe that there is still time for you to change the hearts and minds of those rude and stubborn Americans who are clicking with their penis when they see “QueenofSpain” -then please, prove me wrong. I’ll be at some other web convention soon and I’ll push up my girls loud and proud and fall in line.
But I think you’ve tried. You tried with everything you had to overcome that one-track-mind-emotional reaction.
Let’s end the division in this country now. Right now. Let’s start with your blog and provide a united front against the techies months ahead of schedule.
Let’s take back this country for the people, with you and those large tits playing a much different role than you envisioned.
Please come listen to me on NewsGang, in which I discuss the ‘frat boy pissing contest’ and on the ‘We Show‘ where I delve a bit deeper into this ‘business’ of Mommyblogging.
And if you’re not in the mood for either of those, Twitter followers will be thrilled to hear I finally got my LapTop bag and they should never have to help me shop online again. And if you have not given to the BlogHer/Global Giving initiative, I’d kiss you fully on the mouth with tongue if you would do so now.
Stranded again in an airport in these lovely United States I’m checking in on my kids, reading email, and catching up on the day’s headlines.
As a woman I’ve always had a pretty low threshold for bullshit. As a mother, I now have zero.
I have no time to scwabble about crap. If the kids are fighting over a toy, I don’t conduct an investigation, I just take the toy away from them both. Bullshit level= zero.
So when I get an email this morning from BlogHer politics and news CE Morra Aarons giving a link to the Drudge article showing Senator Barack Obama wearing traditional Somali clothing while on a visit to Kenya, I shook my head.
Bullshit meter is beeping.
But it gets worse. What I thought would be shaken off as a non-story is turning into that Monday Media nonsense that is catching the breath of anchors and writers across the nation. I’m sitting in this airport next to 100 other people and Wolf Blitzer is bringing it up on the CNN tv’s at every gate.
The Clinton Camp is claiming it wasn’t their idea or plant and the Obama Camp is lashing back saying this is “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”
Meanwhile Captain SwiftBoat is planning his big Obama party.
Except you see, we Moms…we have a very low tolerance for bullshit-I did mention that, right?
You see, I have kids. Now while that does not qualify me as a political expert, it does qualify me as a bullshit expert. I guess you can make your own jokes there, but let’s move forward.
My son and his friend tend to bicker a lot. Much like Hillary and Barack. It’s usually over nothing, but things can get pretty heated. My daughter, much like the GOP, just loves to insight these little tiffs. Then the two older kids both get in trouble and Mommy praises daughter for being so good and so unlike those two bad children in their time-out chairs.
I’m rather well versed in playground bullshit and I can easily detect her ruse and sit the 3-year old in the time-out chair before moving forward with the bickering 5-year olds.
I don’t tolerate this behavior from my children, and I’m certainly not going to tolerate it from any of those involved in the political process.
I’m not stupid. My 3-year old is not going to trick me.
Captain Swift Boat isn’t going to trick me either.
Day One of your little campaign to throw things at Senator Obama and we already see right through you. You push out the photo (which, btw we’re all pretty much over that whole “scare us with Muslims” thing) and hook it with Michelle Obama’s “pride” comments and talk of patriotism starts.
Bwwhahahahahahahaha. Seriously, is that all you have?
