A Liberal Mother's Thoughts on the Next Four Years




The next four years I have work to do. But it won't just be signing petitions or marching or voting. I have a woman to raise. And a strong set of ideas to help me do that.

I heard an 11 year old boy on NPR on Inauguration Day. His mother introduced him and he talked briefly about why he was a fan of Donald Trump. I couldn't help but wonder how that mama told her son about the Access Hollywood tape of Trump belittling and blatantly disrespecting a woman. Did she ignore it? Did she sit him down and say, even though you like this man, what he said is not okay?

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. We will have many moments like this over the next four years; when our judgement is tested and our children look to us for answers. If the highest ranking person in our country is cruel or rude or nasty, how do we tell them that it is not okay?

Answer: we simply tell them. People are not perfect and neither are our elected officials. My family is preparing to explain tough topics of race, class, and religion to someone who can't even form a sentence yet. But it is vital to explain these things to her young in order to raise a strong proud woman who leans left.

What a privilege to have the vital years of my adolescence spent under a president who represented a large majority of my political ideals. I am grateful to be alive for such a time when I felt secure and happy about the leader of our country.

As I grow and mature, so do my politics. I now realize that each regime change will cause turmoil and I have a 50/50 shot of being confident in our leader or not, and that will not change my entire life. How exhausting.

Under Barack Obama I had four major things happen that personally made my life better: federal student loans allowed me to go to college and Obama's policies allow me to pay those back based on my income; I was able to buy a home with little down payment and tax breaks as a first time home buyer; insurance paid for a breast pump so I could feed my child when I am away from her; and a federal mandate makes it illegal to discriminate against breastfeeding mothers and made it mandatory for me to have breaks to pump at work. A sincere thank you to the administration for those things.

I am liberal. And for me the next four years will not be so fun, as I'm sure the past eight weren't so fun for a lot of conservatives. But I'm also a mom to a little girl who will be going into kindergarten at the next election cycle.

And I've realized something.

The president or whichever political party is officially in charge of our country isn't officially in charge of how I live or what I believe.

I am a liberal. And my daughter will be raised with the politics that I believe in, and that means teaching her that while we respect our elected officials, we do not have to agree with them.

I have a duty to her to uphold the principles and beliefs I hold very dear.

It is a parent's job to teach their children the values and morals of either political fence. Our children are individuals who, when the time is right, will decide for themselves what they believe. For now I will raise her with my beliefs and politics. When she gets older, she can decide for herself what she'd like to believe. In our family, we are strong in our convictions.

Here are five things she will know, regardless of who is president, about our world and our family:

1. Every person is valuable. Regardless of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, class, rank, or religion. In our family, everyone is treated with kindness and respect.
2. People love who they love. We are LBGT friendly. Everyone deserves to love who they wish. In our family, people are allowed to be who they are.
3. Women can do whatever they dream to do. Want to be president? Let's make it happen, baby girl. In our family, there are no limits.
4. My religious views and relationship with whatever deity I believe created this universe are my own. We respect the views of everyone because those ideals are sacred. We are too small to determine who is right and who is wrong. In our family, we embrace diversity and ideas because they're important to grow.
5. If we don't like the ideas of a person in power, it's okay to let them know. It's not okay to disrespect anyone for their views, but telling them we disagree is just fine. In our family, it's okay to say, "My opinion is different than yours."

Work over the next four years? Sure. But guess what... my work with this little girl and raising her right are more important. She and I can change the world if we continue this path of liberal unity. I believe we can. In our family, my immediate world is most important.

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