Mommy is a Human Being

NOT JUST A MOMMY

I can’t just be a mommy anymore. That’s right, I said it. I can’t just be a mommy anymore. 

I know that most of the mommies reading this are softly chuckling to themselves, since there is something inherently ridiculous in the phrase “just a mommy.” So fine, I can’t just be any of it anymore. I can’t just be the mommy, the wife/partner, employee, management consultant, head cheerleader, cook, laundry lady, chauffeur, social planner, librarian, lego sorter, light-bulb changer and on and on anymore.

I can’t live in my idealized, privileged bubble any longer. The world will not allow it. My conscience will not allow it. The President of the United States of America will not allow it. Teenagers running around with guns will not allow it. The crumbling pillars of democracy will not allow it. My brilliantly inspiring friend Beth will not allow it. And the futures of my children will definitely not allow it.

So, I can’t just be a mommy anymore. I have to raise my head, stand up and be a human being.


I know that half the people reading this post probably think I am a victim of media fear mongering - that if I would just accept their alternative facts as truth, I would see this not as an oncoming storm but as a sign of renewed greatness and enhanced security.
 
And the other half are wondering what took me so long to pull my head out of my butt.

I Could Not Be More Wrong (Or What Dislodged My Head)
 
I’ve been naive and I have been comfortable in my bubble. Perhaps having kids lulled me into a faith in humanity that muted my personal compass and judgement. Or perhaps, having kids has made me tired enough to believe that everything is just somehow going to be fine. Don’t worry, the Paw Patrol will save us! I was ready to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. I thought Donald Trump would rise to the occasion. I thought the position would make the man. I thought he would surround himself with people who were wiser and more moral than himself. I also thought his crazy would be mitigated by the bureaucratic machinery of government. I also thought the Canadian border would be strong enough to stop the ideology and the bullets from crossing over.

Sitting here in my bubble, I didn’t take the time to find out about the rest of the players, like Bannon, Pence, Priebus et al. Sitting here in my bubble, I let it all play out before me like the circus it appeared to be. Until this week, when the performers started throwing real knives and took away the net. 

I have also been blind, tired and afraid. Mostly afraid. Having kids makes me more afraid and more selectively blind because the faces of the Yezidi and Syrian children look hauntingly like my own and I don’t want to see it. Because I know how afraid my own 5-year-old is of the dark and I didn’t want to muster the strength to even imagine the terror that these children must feel in the rubble, in the sea, in the refugee camps, in consulates and at airports. And because by signing some petitions on Facebook, donating some money and sharing the occasional post, I lulled myself into a false sense of conscience.
 

This tweet was posted as an image on Facebook on Sunday evening. It kept me awake the entire night. I feel certain I was not the only one.
 

Back in the day when I was a student activist, I had the original quote from Pastor Martin Neimoller as a poster on my wall.

At that time, my chief concerns were global antisemitism and the rise of neo-Nazism in Toronto. It was the early 90’s and a particularly hot summer. At the time, I was worried for my own ethnic/religious minority and felt, with the fervour of my youth, that we were in the midst of an existential crisis. I’m not sure I could have been called paranoid. At the time, the Holocaust was less than 50 years in the past, my survivor grandparents were still alive and the Gulf War had just dumped tons of scud missiles all over Israel.

I was convinced that we must defend ourselves since we could depend upon nobody but ourselves. I was convinced that I must root my activism internally, protect my own and maintain this focus.

But I can’t just be a Jew, or a woman, or an immigrant or a minority anymore.
 
I have to raise my head, stand up and be a human being.