I’m a 36-year-old wife and mother, and my, “WHY I protest” is my kids. It has been an absolutely wild ride over the past year and a half to pretend everything in the world is normal while I make dinner, pack lunches, run my kids to sports, school dances, and open skate night. Every day my daughters’ rights are in danger, my interracial family’s safety is in jeopardy, my neighbors are disappearing or are just plain pitted against one another. What kind of world is that to leave my children??
I want my kids to be able to say, “My mom fought really hard” when they talk about all of this years from now, when this nightmare is finally over.
I keep saying my biggest fear is that we come out the other side of this and go back to “normal”. Normal wasn’t working for the vast majority of us: living paycheck to paycheck, not being able to afford doctors and dentists, misogyny, racism, bigotry… it wasn’t working. This mess of an administration has shown us the deepest darkest cracks in our society, and when it has ended we will have the opportunity to build something better. Something rooted not just in equality, but in equity. Something where everyone gets a seat at the table and everyone gets an opinion. That something is worth fighting for, it’s worth standing up for even when it’s hard.
That something is what I want to leave my kids.
Ashley G.