This week I've been listening to "How to Survive the End of the World," a podcast by Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown. It's fantastic. Check it out.
In listening to their conversations, particularly about child- birthing and loss and raising, I realized that I've been struggling with my identity as a mom and someone who cares about and works for justice in the world.
Having S. corresponded with a shift in my work and life. I was starting seminary with a hefty commute, my partner's organizing job was getting way more demanding, and a baby adds a new level of financial and emotional need. I had finished my time at Vanderbilt, where opportunities to plug into social movements abound, and where, as a student, I had the flexibility to give time and attention to those movements.
The emotionally intensive facilitation work I really got into before and during pregnancy went to the back burner. For the most part, we can only afford to have childcare for hours during which we are working or at school, for me).
Social movement spaces aren't always conducive to young families -- it's a lot of long days and evening meetings for a baby or toddler -- and I regularly choose consistent nap time and slow evenings and dinners for my son over, well, just about any other option. Especially at the beginning, his sleeping and eating was so easily throw off track, and a bad afternoon nap meant lots of night waking, lots of exhaustion.
But is that just a list of excuses? Have I sold out?
There's obviously part of me that thinks so, or I wouldn't be writing this. But Autumn and adrienne have been reminding me that the small stabilities and consistencies for my kid are also a form of movement work. I chose the part time hourly cubicle job that pays the bills and frees up my heart and mind, so I can replenish those emotional resources to respond to a toddler with patience and re-read that bell hooks picture book 17 times. That is the work of dismantling the patriarchy, for him and also in myself.
I've internalized the devaluation of (traditionally women's) labor that focuses on the home and child, even within a framework that explicitly values the feminized and vulnerable, that claims liberation for folks to be able to do exactly this work: raise a child with peace and connection, take time to tend emotional intelligence and body and family.
The movement work will go on. There will still be groups to facilitate. There will be books to write. There will be gardens to plant and protests to join and classes to teach and hospital visits to make -- all those works I have loved to do and will love to do again. Not now doesn't mean never.
And now I can choose to remember and recenter the truth that this little guy -- and the small moments like this morning, drawing circles and singing "peace like a river" while putting on his shoes -- he is my daily work of justice and freedom.