Yesterday Michelle Obama gave what some people are calling the speech of her career. This is a woman who campaigned for the country's first black president and is now doing so for what is likely to be the country's first woman president. Yet her own accomplishments reach far beyond her campaign skills, which are great, no doubt. She is a lawyer, a writer, an educator, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, the former VP of Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago, an advocate for women and girls' education, a proponent of healthy living, a voice for veterans and their families, and so much more. So while calling a campaign speech the highlight of what has been and surely will continue to be an amazingly impressive career certainly downplays her strengths, it does serve to highlight how important her words were. Not for this election, freak-show that it has been. But for our kids and how we choose to raise them.
I'm not worried about my daughter. She was born with a fighting heart and a killer eye-roll and she has never once shied away from declaring what she wants, what she intends to do and how she plans to get there. She kicked ass at karate, loves getting sweaty at soccer, and is proud to show off her Star Wars knowledge even though none of her girlfriends know what she's talking about. No, I'm not worried about her ability to stand up for herself as she continues to grow into the intelligent, witty, and bold young woman she is becoming.
Sure, she will hit walls and glass ceilings. She will question her worth. She will wonder if she is good enough. (These feelings aren't felt only by women, to be clear. Men feel them just the same even if, perhaps, they don't talk about them or show them as much). But my daughter has female role models to look up to and the spirit to believe in herself and to know that there isn't anything she can't do just because she's a girl. I can hope, as her mother and as a woman who has had more than my share of self-righteous, overbearing, critical, and overtly sexist men in my life, that she is never challenged in those ways. That no man ever looks at her and says, or makes her feel, like she or her job or her voice, or her contribution to her family and to society don't matter. I know how that feels. I know what internalizing those thoughts does to a person. My heart breaks at the thought of those things potentially happening to her. But she has me. Me, who has become stronger and smarter and better on the other side of that "masculine" strutting. She has herself- her own best advocate. She will have a woman president to look up to. And so many other strong women too, like Michelle Obama for instance.
Obama said, in that speech, that "Like us, the men in our lives are worried about the impact this election is having on our boys who are looking for role models of what it means to be a man." She couldn't have been more right. The social media and press storm after the horrendous things that have come out about the other presidential candidate have focused mostly on our daughters. How we don't want them growing up in a world where talk and action like this is normal. And we don't, of course. So much of it is normalized to the point where it's hard to step back and look at what we teach our daughters objectively. Sit like a lady. Don't be so bossy. You are the prettiest! I'm sure I've said all of these things to my daughter without really thinking about the implication behind them. I've rethought all of those things and watch my words more carefully so that I'm making sure that she isn't, in any way, stymied by social expectations about girls.
Then there is my son. He's so small. He's so young. A new stuffed animal still makes his day. But then his innate observations skills come out of no where and he comes out with the most profound thoughts, forcing me to stop and really think about what he is learning from his environment. I hope he is too young to remember the way his father used to talk to me. But I also hope he realizes one day that choosing to demean women means that women won't stick around. I hope he looks to his stepfather, a man that equally shares household duties, a man that requires his own son be respectful of everyone, a man who values me and my work and my successes and my time even more than his own, and sees a man that he wants to be. I hope he never thinks to use the words "locker room talk" to excuse something he has done or said. And I hope I will have taught him enough by then that he never says or does them to begin with.
More than teaching my daughter how to protect or stand up for herself, I want to teach my son that he is not inherently better than anyone- male or female. That he never has the right to dominate, demean, discriminate or devalue anyone. That there is no such thing as a birthright specific to the male gender. I want to teach him that, as Michelle Obama put it, "People who are truly strong, lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring people together." That's the kind of man I want him to grow up to be. Which is why we cannot tolerate anything less from the people we choose to represent us.
I am not a political person. I don't have signs in my yard or bumper stickers on my car. But I'm a mom, to both a son and a daughter. Their fights are different, but the goal is the same- to be a good person who does good things for themselves and for others. And every day I see or hear or read something that makes me shake my head at the happenings in this world. And it's scary to raise children when there are so many bad things going on. The very least we can do (and we should do more when we can, of course!) is stop those who promote messages of sexism, racism, hatred and complete disregard for human decency. And do our very best for ourselves, our communities and for the world we want our children to grown up in.
