I love this, Zawn. Thank you for writing this. My son (14) has a dissability. Since he was 2 years old I have been working on letting him participate in our neighborhood and in our local elementary school. Which is very uncommon in the part of (western) Europe where we live.
Children like my son usually go to schools far away with other kids with dissabilities. They are unable to make friends in the neighborhood. Many of them are lonely. Inclusion is an exception and seen as a burden here.
I have surrounded myself with people who have the same inclusive mindset. Who are also fierce in sticking up for inclusion. I formed a community around my son. I even started a Foundation so my son can go to high school, just like everyone else. I write and speak about this journey; hoping other parents can take steps to inclusion for their kids as well.
My son’s elementary school years yielded amazing results for his daily life. But… it was a tough road as well. It came with a lot of practical challenges, a lot of extra time I had to put in to make it happen. Add up all the extra’s a child with 24/7 care needs.
And although my husband is great with our kid, he is not actively involved. He just watches from the side line (also: no household equality).
My husband and I are facing divorce now. One of the reasons is his lack of involvement, support and curiosity.
He now says he LET me do this, but he cannot let me go through with this. As if it were a privilige he granted me (he provides the main income). And he is taking that privilige now. I am angry. But not surprised. Not at all.
Now, my husband IS right: the Foundation does face some giant challenges. Which basically means that it is unsure if my son can continue to go to high school. My husband says it’s hopeless. Not worth all the efford. And there you are, Zawn, writing: ‘The people who tell you it is hopeless, that the world is ending, are not your allies.’ 🙏🏼
And… I am tired. So tired.
‘It was all about protecting your own mental health as a first priority, and as a necessary prerequisite to making any meaningful change in the world.
Without exception, the biggest changemakers I know are also the most committed to self-care. They guard their free time. They sleep. They take time and space to shut out the world, and to take a break from the many evils and forms of suffering they cannot control.’
Something in me doesn’t want to give up. But maybe I should take a break. Take care of me. Take this loss. Try again later. Start with my own tiny corner of the world.
Thank you for this important insight! Personally I have started getting involved in the PTA at my kids school to organize donation based clothing drives for the community. I’ve turned my yard into a native habitat to support our earth. I am an herbalist and am studying the many plants useful for birth control and abortion. We all have our little piece to give with our little bit of time. Community is the resistance!
Thank you - I need to read this daily. I’ve spent *far* too much time recently arguing on Instagram and reading hateful takes from tools on Twitter. At some level I think I’m advocating or raising my awareness by doing this, but it’s really just low effort, low impact stuff.
Also I have some Gen-X guilt around how little my peers and I did in the 90s and 00s to move the dial. Certainly I don’t want to take anything away from Gen-X feminists, but so far as my own circle of friends and acquaintances is concerned, for a long time it’s felt like we got sucked into the backlash, desperately wanted to believe men didn’t hate us and everything was ok (so *we’d* be ok), and in doing so dropped the ball for younger women. As a teen/ young adult in the 90s I believed equality for women had basically been achieved and all I had to do was work hard and show I could do my job as well as a man.
I’m embarrassed for my younger self, but this article gives some grace, and reminds me of the power I still have, so thank you xx
Like the saying goes, better late than never. You're far ahead of people who never made the realizations you have now. And as a Gen-Xer, even one who was pretty aware and participated in feminist actions at that time, I remember at one point in college thinking, "oh, Roe will never be overturned. It's the law of the land," and just writing off the fears raised by usually older women who could remember a different time. I can't tell you how often I've wanted to time travel back to my younger self at the moment and shake some sense into her and warn what was coming.
Thank you for the lovely response! I’m not in the US but like so many around the world have been horrified at the erosion of reproductive rights that has occurred since Dobbs. Those changes are one of the factors influencing how I will vote in the upcoming election here in Aotearoa/ NZ. I’d give your younger self some grace too 🙂 - even in the early 2000s it would have taken great prescience to predict the rise of Trump and the resulting political audacity. Kia kaha (sending strength) my friend
Thank you! Coincidentally, one of my sisters lived in Wellington for a decade until she moved to Australia last year. We were sad to see Jacinda Adern go. She seemed to represent a model for women leading that seems especially so needed now. Hope things go OK with the upcoming election!
Oh cool! Hope your sister has lots of happy memories of Wgtn! Agree about JA and it was particularly sad to see the online harassment/ hatred towards the end of her tenure as PM. A lot of misogynistic backlash here. The old & not so old dudes *hated* how popular she was internationally. JA was the first leader of a political party in whom I could see something of myself. I didn’t even realise what that felt like until she came along. Thanks for the good wishes, I feel like we need it!
Thank you for these words -- "Motherhood is an act of resistance, too. You are raising the next generation, which is a necessary prerequisite to the success of feminism and the existence of the future.
Mothers are the resistance."
I love that idea. I recently read a profile of Jeanne Manford, the founder of PFLAG, and was so moved by this quote: "It is difficult to say why some people perceive injustice right away while others require a social movement or a civil war to see it, if they ever do. Some of those who knew Jeanne Manford speculated that her support for Morty stemmed from Charles’s suicide—that, having lost one child, she could not bear the thought of losing another. Others suggested that it was because she grew up Jewish at a time of rampant antisemitism, deadly abroad and insidious at home. But Suzanne, who disputes both accounts, told me that her mother simply loved her children as many parents strive to but few achieve: unconditionally."
That idea has resonated with me ever since. That loving children unconditionally and that mothering can be the the very work of political revolutions.
Activism isn’t always about big public acts. I love quoting Mother Theresa “if you want to change the world, go home and love your family”. Because there’s so much you can do that’s within your sphere of control in the domestic space.
Think of women (house wives) leveraging their purchase power to drive down the price of sugar, tabacco and rum which resulted in save labour being devalued and it being economically more viable to emancipate enslaved people.
I also love “strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber” from the song I have confidence in the sound of music.
just want to add that I believe that making you feel guilty that you're not doing enough for feminism us a tool of patriarchy, not feminism. yet another thing to make you feel guilty about and bad about yourself.
I don’t mean to be inappropriate--it’s just that it turns out I love you 😂😭🤩
I love this, Zawn. Thank you for writing this. My son (14) has a dissability. Since he was 2 years old I have been working on letting him participate in our neighborhood and in our local elementary school. Which is very uncommon in the part of (western) Europe where we live.
Children like my son usually go to schools far away with other kids with dissabilities. They are unable to make friends in the neighborhood. Many of them are lonely. Inclusion is an exception and seen as a burden here.
I have surrounded myself with people who have the same inclusive mindset. Who are also fierce in sticking up for inclusion. I formed a community around my son. I even started a Foundation so my son can go to high school, just like everyone else. I write and speak about this journey; hoping other parents can take steps to inclusion for their kids as well.
My son’s elementary school years yielded amazing results for his daily life. But… it was a tough road as well. It came with a lot of practical challenges, a lot of extra time I had to put in to make it happen. Add up all the extra’s a child with 24/7 care needs.
And although my husband is great with our kid, he is not actively involved. He just watches from the side line (also: no household equality).
My husband and I are facing divorce now. One of the reasons is his lack of involvement, support and curiosity.
He now says he LET me do this, but he cannot let me go through with this. As if it were a privilige he granted me (he provides the main income). And he is taking that privilige now. I am angry. But not surprised. Not at all.
Now, my husband IS right: the Foundation does face some giant challenges. Which basically means that it is unsure if my son can continue to go to high school. My husband says it’s hopeless. Not worth all the efford. And there you are, Zawn, writing: ‘The people who tell you it is hopeless, that the world is ending, are not your allies.’ 🙏🏼
And… I am tired. So tired.
‘It was all about protecting your own mental health as a first priority, and as a necessary prerequisite to making any meaningful change in the world.
Without exception, the biggest changemakers I know are also the most committed to self-care. They guard their free time. They sleep. They take time and space to shut out the world, and to take a break from the many evils and forms of suffering they cannot control.’
Something in me doesn’t want to give up. But maybe I should take a break. Take care of me. Take this loss. Try again later. Start with my own tiny corner of the world.
🙏🏼
Thank you for this important insight! Personally I have started getting involved in the PTA at my kids school to organize donation based clothing drives for the community. I’ve turned my yard into a native habitat to support our earth. I am an herbalist and am studying the many plants useful for birth control and abortion. We all have our little piece to give with our little bit of time. Community is the resistance!
I love your words and I am so grateful that you share them so generously!
Thank you Zawn!!
Thank you - I need to read this daily. I’ve spent *far* too much time recently arguing on Instagram and reading hateful takes from tools on Twitter. At some level I think I’m advocating or raising my awareness by doing this, but it’s really just low effort, low impact stuff.
Also I have some Gen-X guilt around how little my peers and I did in the 90s and 00s to move the dial. Certainly I don’t want to take anything away from Gen-X feminists, but so far as my own circle of friends and acquaintances is concerned, for a long time it’s felt like we got sucked into the backlash, desperately wanted to believe men didn’t hate us and everything was ok (so *we’d* be ok), and in doing so dropped the ball for younger women. As a teen/ young adult in the 90s I believed equality for women had basically been achieved and all I had to do was work hard and show I could do my job as well as a man.
I’m embarrassed for my younger self, but this article gives some grace, and reminds me of the power I still have, so thank you xx
Like the saying goes, better late than never. You're far ahead of people who never made the realizations you have now. And as a Gen-Xer, even one who was pretty aware and participated in feminist actions at that time, I remember at one point in college thinking, "oh, Roe will never be overturned. It's the law of the land," and just writing off the fears raised by usually older women who could remember a different time. I can't tell you how often I've wanted to time travel back to my younger self at the moment and shake some sense into her and warn what was coming.
Thank you for the lovely response! I’m not in the US but like so many around the world have been horrified at the erosion of reproductive rights that has occurred since Dobbs. Those changes are one of the factors influencing how I will vote in the upcoming election here in Aotearoa/ NZ. I’d give your younger self some grace too 🙂 - even in the early 2000s it would have taken great prescience to predict the rise of Trump and the resulting political audacity. Kia kaha (sending strength) my friend
Thank you! Coincidentally, one of my sisters lived in Wellington for a decade until she moved to Australia last year. We were sad to see Jacinda Adern go. She seemed to represent a model for women leading that seems especially so needed now. Hope things go OK with the upcoming election!
Oh cool! Hope your sister has lots of happy memories of Wgtn! Agree about JA and it was particularly sad to see the online harassment/ hatred towards the end of her tenure as PM. A lot of misogynistic backlash here. The old & not so old dudes *hated* how popular she was internationally. JA was the first leader of a political party in whom I could see something of myself. I didn’t even realise what that felt like until she came along. Thanks for the good wishes, I feel like we need it!
Thank you for these words -- "Motherhood is an act of resistance, too. You are raising the next generation, which is a necessary prerequisite to the success of feminism and the existence of the future.
Mothers are the resistance."
I love that idea. I recently read a profile of Jeanne Manford, the founder of PFLAG, and was so moved by this quote: "It is difficult to say why some people perceive injustice right away while others require a social movement or a civil war to see it, if they ever do. Some of those who knew Jeanne Manford speculated that her support for Morty stemmed from Charles’s suicide—that, having lost one child, she could not bear the thought of losing another. Others suggested that it was because she grew up Jewish at a time of rampant antisemitism, deadly abroad and insidious at home. But Suzanne, who disputes both accounts, told me that her mother simply loved her children as many parents strive to but few achieve: unconditionally."
That idea has resonated with me ever since. That loving children unconditionally and that mothering can be the the very work of political revolutions.
[Link to the full article below:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/17/how-one-mothers-love-for-her-gay-son-started-a-revolution]
I’m going to read this every morning. Thank you zawn 💕
Activism isn’t always about big public acts. I love quoting Mother Theresa “if you want to change the world, go home and love your family”. Because there’s so much you can do that’s within your sphere of control in the domestic space.
Think of women (house wives) leveraging their purchase power to drive down the price of sugar, tabacco and rum which resulted in save labour being devalued and it being economically more viable to emancipate enslaved people.
I also love “strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber” from the song I have confidence in the sound of music.
just want to add that I believe that making you feel guilty that you're not doing enough for feminism us a tool of patriarchy, not feminism. yet another thing to make you feel guilty about and bad about yourself.