11/17/2004 Our children may one day be amazed we mistook religious zeal for moral values
Haddayr Copley-Woods
I admit that after November 2nd, I panicked a bit. Handmaid's Tale-nightmares of my children being ripped from my arms at the Canadian border as we tried to escape the Kingdom of Nukular Homo-Hatin' God-lovers haunted me.
After a day of this silliness, I called my mom to chat with her about how her newest grandson and I are doing, and got a reality check.
My mother congratulated me for sticking to my guns and insisting on a 12-week maternity leave. No, I reminded her, there was no need for firearms; a 12-week parental leave is now federal law.
In the 70s, my mother worked right up until her water broke with all of her pregnancies, had all of us at home and went back to work a day or two later. She was not some sort of Iron Woman; she had to do it. She had no maternity leave; her (female) boss threatened to fire her when she became pregnant with her third. She had home births to avoid the labor she would have had in a 1970s hospital: coerced use of drugs and forced into the most difficult and dangerous position a woman can labor (flat on her back in stirrups, shaved). Midwives were illegal in Illinois, so she searched for the rare doctor willing to do home deliveries. Home or hospital, her health insurance refused to cover pregnancy-related expenses. Everyone's did.
In 2004, my boss rejoiced at the news of my second pregnancy. When the time came, I refused everything doctors and nurses suggested in the hospital, and no one questioned the presence of my husband and doula, who helped me get into any damn position I wanted. My insurance paid for everything. Afterwards, I went home. I won't be back to work until December 13th, and they can't replace me.
I am so grateful to her generation. None of my advantages came about through some sort of slow and unavoidable enlightenment brought by time's passage. Our country changed for the better because people fought for it—through several Republican presidents, I might add. (Although I admit this one's jaw-dropping incompetence and right-wing, anti-constitutional agenda is particularly horrifying—he makes Bush I seem Gandhiesque).
We progressives have a chance to pay back those who have made our own lives better by fighting for them and for our own children. Unfortunately, there is a lot of opportunity to fight. Fortunately, despite the Bush administration's swaggering bluster, in key ways we have most of America on our side: according to CNN's election-day exit polling, 55 percent of voters are pro-choice, and 60 percent support either same-sex marriage or civil unions.
If we work as hard as the women and men who came before us, our children will someday be amazed that once one-quarter of our nation mistook religious zealotry for moral values, that we warred with no goal or justification, that our wealthy did not pay their fair share in taxes, that millions of Americans were once without health care, that our public schools were shamefully and deliberately under-funded.
Earlier progressives have done so much, despite desperate times. Let's show our thanks this season through our own commitment. Organize a union. Speak up when you hear someone make a dumb-ass bigoted comment. Raise your children to think for themselves. Create genuinely thought-provoking art. If you see hypocrisy, such as when Republicans are outraged—outraged, I tell you—that outside money is influencing local elections, write a letter to the editor. Eat organic. Reporters, do your job by asking tough questions—with follow-up when your targets lie—instead of lobbing softballs. Work on a political campaign you believe in. Run for office yourself. Hold corporations who pollute and the politicians who cover for them accountable. Remind fanatics that Jesus wanted them to love one another and feed the poor, not persecute gays and dodge taxes. Don't back down when the opposition fights dirty. Fight corruption. Refuse to hand over your school to military recruiters and bible-thumpers, and demand that those who mouth support for children back it up with cold, hard cash. Be a plain old pain in the butt.
We can wallow in helpless apathy, or we can insist on taking this nation forward rather than allowing anyone to drag it back. Right now it may feel as if we have lost control of our country, but we are our country. Let's never forget it.
Haddayr Copley-Woods is a writer and graphic designer who lives and works in Minneapolis' Powderhorn Park neighborhood.
