Tag Archives: family

We need ‘Little Critter’ books for justice

Posted on April 23, 2013 by | Leave a comment

At least around my house, woe befall the Mommy who, in running out the door with her hands full of kids and all their stuff, forgets to turn off a light.

Because, apparently, Dora the Explorer told my twins that leaving lights on kills penguins. And polar bears.

And they really like penguins and polar bears.

It’s great, really, the way that they have been indoctrinated into a conservation ethic. My oldest son won’t throw away anything from his lunchbox, in the hopes that everything can be composted or reused.

They would never leave the water running when they brush their teeth, the same way my generation learned to put on seatbelts automatically.

And they, because they are 4, are never shy about reminding the rest of us.

It’s everywhere they turn, and they’ve learned, and they become our social conscience.

The WonderPets save arctic animals, too, and the Boxcar Children recycle, and even Nancy Drew has an Earth Day mystery.

It’s a plot line, yes, but it’s also a way of life.

It’s the way of their lives, now, and so the way of ours.

And that made me think: we need to get on the ‘get them through the children’ bandwagon.

I mean, if Little Critter can save the Earth, can’t he (is Little Critter a boy?) fight racial injustice? End homelessness? Oppose heterosexism? Combat the stigma associated with mental illness?

If children all over this country watched TV programs and read children’s books and had cross-promotional tie-ins about economic inequality and the evils of social service retrenchment, grown-ups would hear about it every time we proposed massive tax cuts or bashed unions.

If Dora had to go past the DMV and around the bank and through the neighborhood with the inadequate police protection and the broken streetlights, in order to get to the office to pick up her food assistance (all while hauling around her twin baby siblings), my kids would be asking me why we make it so hard for people to get help.

And maybe that would help to spark a movement, the same way that my kids now excoriate each other if they find the refrigerator door left open.

Maybe we have some episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood to write: I think they are going to organize to keep Wal-Mart from taking over their local businesses while squeezing their suppliers.

If it was on Netflix, my kids would totally watch that.

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Is there such a thing as ‘too passionate’ to advocate?

Posted on April 11, 2013 by | 6 Comments

I am pretty passionate about a lot of issues.

I guess that has been established, no?

On a weekly basis, I’m actively advocating on anti-poverty policy, domestic violence, immigration reform, early childhood education, mental health, hunger, GLBT oppression, and public education.

I care about all of those things–and more–deeply.

But over the past several months, my reaction to another issue has forced me to consider, in a way that I really haven’t before, if sometimes there are issues we are too invested in to be effective advocates.

See, I’m still fundamentally not okay, at all, about the fact that someone could get access to high-powered weapons and blast into a school and murder first graders.

My Sam is a first grader.

And, while I completely agree with those who lament that it takes that kind of random gun violence to provoke an uprising, instead of the numbingly, achingly routine gun violence that robs thousands of young people of their futures–in less public but no less tragic ways–somehow, undeniably, this, for me, is different.

So, while on just about every other issue, I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at laying out a case, using language of common values, building bases of power, and finding middle ground, when it comes to guns, I am sort of totally unreasonable.

I can’t seem to articulate arguments much beyond: “WHY do you need assault weapons? WHY?”

I admire, greatly, and support financially, the work of nonprofits who have seized the momentum created in this opening window of opportunity to push for better gun laws.

And, I mean, I advocate.

I sign their petitions and I have written to my members of Congress. It doesn’t make me feel better, in this case, the way that it usually does, but I have.

I joined 1 Million Moms for Gun Control, and I am heartened to the point of awe at how they have turned their outrage into action, and how they’re building a movement with people who never realized they were movement-builders.

But when it comes to really engaging in social change, which requires, well, ‘engaging’ people, I struggle. It’s hard for me to get much past the “NEVER AGAIN”.

Sometimes I cry.

I can talk about deportation policy at cocktail parties. I can debate the (nil) merits of drug-testing public assistance recipients in line at the grocery store. I actually respond to those email forwards that people send around about Social Security and unemployment benefits.

But, when it comes to gun, I feel like I’ve got a blind spot. I sort of freeze, because I really have trouble comprehending that others aren’t moved in the same way, to the same place, that I am, by the horrifying realization that we are so vulnerable, while there are so many speedy and efficient ways for people to kill.

So I hope, dear readers, that you’ll give me some context here. Are there issues on which you feel like you’re ‘too close’, or ‘too charged’, to be effective advocates? Are there some causes that you have to stay away from, because they are too painful for you to take on? Are there issues where you cheer from the sidelines, not because you don’t care, but because you might care too much?

Or have you learned to channel these emotions, so that you can be a potent force even on issues that are triggers (absolutely NO pun intended; I couldn’t think of a good substitute word) for you? Do you have any advice, that might help me get enough virtual distance, so that I can sort of get over myself and be actually helpful?

Because I want to be. I’m just not certain that I don’t, maybe, want it too much.

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No excuses

Posted on March 19, 2013 by | Leave a comment

This isn’t really a fully-formed post.

And it’s certainly not an indictment of anyone other than myself.

It’s just that, as I was looking back through my notes from A Problem from Hell, I was thinking about how, in retrospect, it looks so very clear. And no possible excuse is adequate.

And, I know, the problems that we confront in our daily work aren’t often (thankfully) as stark as the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, or Rwandans.

But that doesn’t mean that my excuses–commitments with my kids, or the general demands of work, or just thinking how nice it would be to go to bed early and read a novel (okay, or, if I’m being realistic, a book about the growing economic divide in higher education, but, still…)–are any less pitiful.

In interviews, and in historical documents, the excuses people gave for not doing more generally fell into three categories (p. 429 and elsewhere):

  • Futility–nothing that I could do could possibly make any difference
  • Perversity–somehow, what I might do could be worse than doing nothing at all
  • Jeopardy–there’s too much risk, for me and for those who would be involved

And, really, without exception, those excuses are pretty weak–then, in the context of genocide, certainly–but also now, in my advocacy, and maybe in yours.

Because there’s always something we can do. And it just might help. And, really, when we’re talking about injustices being perpetrated, it’s usually hard to imagine how our involvement, especially if we’re smart about it, could make the situation worse. And, of course, there’s always risk, but is it as risky as the moral hazard of failing to live up to our own ideals?

We can always find excuses. The author summarizes, “Those who did not want to know, or act…were always able to find the lack of proof at the right moment” (p. 219).

I don’t want that to describe me.

As I was thinking about occasions when I should have shown up, or spoken out, or put in some extra effort, I remembered by Grandpa Pete, who used to shake his head when hearing particularly flimsy explanations, and say, “That just doesn’t hold water.” For someone from the farm, that’s a condemnation.

And, if I’m honest, it’s often deserved.

So, here’s to more. And to being on the right side of history, at least, as best I can.

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Patience: An overrated virtue

Posted on March 12, 2013 by | 1 Comment

I am not a very patient person.

This is probably why, around the time that my kids turn 18 months old, when they’re in full-on toddler mode, and, therefore, unable to delay their gratification for even a minute, someone remarks that, “sooner or later, they all revert to Mommy’s personality.”

I mean, thanks.

But I usually say, when they’re screaming and kicking their feet on the floor, that that attitude will really serve them well, as advocates.

Because, when it comes to demanding justice, patience is not our friend.

I appreciated the colorful language of Raphael Lemkin, the crusader who coined the term ‘genocide’, who said, “Patience is a good word to be used when one expects an appointment, a budgetary allocation or the building of a road. But when the rope is already around the neck of the victim and strangulation is imminent, isn’t the word ‘patience’ an insult to reason and nature?” (p. 28).

Except I’d point out that, sometimes, a budget allocation–or the lack thereof–can be almost as damaging to an individual’s well-being as a figurative noose, and, so, when it comes to advocating for the resources that people need to live decently and justly, we aren’t necessarily well-served by an abundance of patience, either.

I have thought about this a lot lately, as our state wrestles with a budget that could see tremendous cuts to the programs that serve children in need, from before they’re born throughout their lives.

Because, the thing is, our children never get those years back.

The dire consequences we can expect for our children’s futures, if we eliminate their health care and their early childhood assessments and intervention, and increase their class sizes and squeeze out their best teachers, and strain their mental health safety nets and push their parents to the breaking point…we can’t delay those, urging patience, while we get our fiscal house in order.

And, so, maybe we all should be kicking our feet and screaming.

Maybe, indeed, the really unbelievable–and unreasonable–thing, is to take this all so calmly.

There’s a really haunting passage in A Problem from Hell that dramatically underscores this difference between what may be called for, and what we’re comfortable doing. In the story, a Jewish leader from Warsaw pleaded with Jews in Allied countries to take unreasonable action to raise world outrage about the unfolding genocide perpetrated by the Nazis. His proposals were called “bitter and unrealistic”, but he was unmoved. “…Let them crowd the offices of Churchill, of all the important English and American leaders and agencies. Let them proclaim a fast before the doors of the mightiest, not retreating until they will believe us, until they will undertake some action to rescue those of our people who are still alive. Let them die a slow death while the world is looking on. This may shake the conscience of the world” (p. 33).

When do we let patience, or reasonableness, excuse inaction and cowardice?

When do we dismiss as too radical the actions of conscience to which we are called?

And what price is paid for our self-defeat?

A Problem from Hell ends with a citation of George Bernard Shaw’s quote that “all progress depends on the unreasonable man”, and an exhortation that we have to “join and legitimate the ranks of the unreasonable” (p. 516).

Maybe we need more ‘screamers’, as those who protested Nazi abuses early on were known, but we have to keep screaming until it stops.

Maybe we need to stop listening to those who would counsel gradualism and urge patience.

Maybe we need more people acting like toddlers, in the advocacy context, refusing to be quieted until we have what we need.

I knew this temperament would come in handy.

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How we give

Posted on January 14, 2013 by | 1 Comment

I came across a study that asserts that 65% of all American charitable giving has no research behind it.

In some ways, that’s surprising, right? With all of the talk about accountability and transparency?

It seems like people would want to know where their money is going. Instead, we mostly just give–when we’re moved, when we’re guilty, when we’re connected to those who need the gifts.

And we hope that our gifts will make a difference.

But we don’t really know.

I thought about these data, and about how we give, over the Christmas holiday, when Sam and I sat down to make our end-of-the-year charitable contributions.

Because nonprofits need us to give better. They need us to use our dollars to help them focus on results and support them in reaching for excellence. They need us to give in ways that make sense for their work, instead of just the ways that feel good to us. We share the same aspirations–we and the nonprofits we deem worthy of our support–or we wouldn’t give to them in the first place.

But how we give can make a difference in how likely they are to reach them–how likely we are to get there together.

  • Sam and I give at the end of the year not because there’s a particular need at that time, but, instead, because that’s part of our family’s holiday ritual. It works for us, but we should acknowledge that they might be better served by a different giving pattern.
  • Sam is fairly strategic in his giving choices. He usually has a particular part of the world, or a particular problem he wants to address, that becomes his priority. We don’t just respond to the solicitations we get, and we never give over the phone, because that feels too pressured. I think he fits into the 35% minority, probably, if they studied 6-year-olds.
  • We do some research on the front end, usually including reviewing the organization’s materials around (what I call) their theory of change–how do they talk about why they do what they do, and does that linkage make sense to us? What we lack, for this part, is good information about impact; we have financial data at our fingertips, and even access to efficiency/good governance ratings sometimes, but that’s not the same as really assessing the dent they’re making in the problems that plague us, and I feel that failing.
  • We almost never have ongoing contact with the organizations after our donation. We really should, I know–we’re now part of their constituency, and we should care about what they’re doing with our money, and how they’re ‘moving the needle’ on the problem we set out to solve together. But we don’t, I guess because, in the end, our giving is more about us than about them, which says something pretty significant, I think.
  • Related to that, it really just occurred to me preparing this post that we don’t support most of the organizations we give to in any other way–I don’t receive their action alerts, and we don’t advocate alongside them, and I don’t volunteer. We have a slate of organizations and causes with which we share what we have–some get our time, some my expertise, some our money. When I put it like that, it seems odd, and it has me thinking about why our charitable giving is somehow separate from the rest of our nonprofit work.

I’d love to hear about others’ giving habits–how do you give to nonprofits? Which ones are priorities for you, and why? How much research goes into your decision, and what information weighs most heavily? How would you characterize your relationship with the nonprofits you support financially? What does that say about what giving means to you?

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If even Big Bird’s on the chopping block…

Posted on January 8, 2013 by | 2 Comments

This is not really a post about the debate where Romney suggested cutting funding for public broadcasting.

We’ve put that behind us, right?

Instead, it’s about the symbolism of the debate, and about the very real and still very urgent risk that we lose our collective understanding of what the commons means, and why it matters.

We spend a lot of time at public parks. Even now, in the winter, thanks to climate change. Really.

But much of what my kids know, even still, is commodified. The only television they watch comes through Netflix, which we buy. Their favorite places to play are the indoor play centers, which charge entrance fees. The youngest ones go to private preschools, and even my son in public school doesn’t really know what public school would look like without the additional services paid for with private dollars, from parents’ contributions, like the counselor and his Spanish class and the extra field trips.

They wouldn’t at all understand the significance of eliminating PBS, because they don’t really understand the idea that valuable things can be provided, free to the user, through our shared investment.

Today, it seems that nothing is ‘sacred’ from privatization and retrenchment.

My students did a presentation last fall on the private prison industry and its influence on public policy that shocked even me. More of the mental health system has shifted to private providers, leaving an emaciated community mental health system incapable of dealing with demand. One of my client organizations saw a would-be client commit suicide after experiencing a six-week wait for an initial mental health assessment.

The city where I live recently changed its policies to allow neighbors to reject sidewalk projects, after homeowners complained that having public sidewalks on their streets hurt their property values.

Really.

What does it mean, for those of us who believe in the commons, and for a sector like ours, which thrives there?

If there is at least a sizable percentage of our society that is willing to sacrifice Big Bird in the name of austerity, what is in store for much less fuzzy things we value, like the Older Americans Act and Medicaid expansion and early childhood intervention programs?

Are there lessons to be learned from those pieces of the commons that we do still prioritize? From universal programs like Social Security, that have woven their way into inevitability? What do we need to be doing–with our organizing, and our messaging, and our advocacy–to position ourselves to emerge unscathed from the budget cuts that still stretch across the horizon, in this new year?

What will it take to rebuild the commons, and to recapture the imaginations of children just like mine, who–despite Mommy’s infatuation with public libraries–still think that most things that are worth something have to be bought, and brought home, just for us?

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How they will know history

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Sam and I reading our favorite quote at the Dr. King Memorial

I interrupt September’s “reflections on my practice” theme, today, not for a “I remember where I was on Tuesday, September 11th, 11 years ago”, even though I do.

On this day, as I answer Sam’s questions about what happened then, I am struck by how much responsibility I have, as his Mom, to shape how he sees a past he will never know first-hand.

And that’s a really big deal.

Today, he asked the hard questions, about why someone would attack the United States when we weren’t at war. About why people who weren’t soldiers were the ones targeted. About why we responded by attacking a country.

Today isn’t the first time I’ve thought about this.

When we were at Legoland a month ago, for his birthday, he said that what he wanted to build on the ‘earthquake’ table was “Kris Kobach’s office.” (For the record, I did NOT condone this.)

He also called Kobach the “Voldemort of Kansas”. (Full disclosure: I thought that was pretty funny. And kind of accurate.)

So, obviously, he listens when Mommy talks, even if it’s not directly to him, and it shapes how he sees things that even he–who understands so much–can’t totally comprehend.

He knows that Mommy has a soft spot for LBJ, his obvious failings notwithstanding.

He knows that, in our family, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a big deal, not just a Monday off work in January.

He knows that the FDR Memorial in DC is my favorite, and he knows why.

And I don’t regret this, this passing on of what matters to me, and some of the values I hold most sacred.

This summer, when we were at the MLK Memorial in DC, I read him one of Dr. King’s quotes, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Sam looked at me and said, “Like Abraham Lincoln.”

How could I not be proud?

But how can I–collectively, how can we–teach our children about the past while creating a space for them to shape their own beliefs? How can I encourage him to conduct his own analysis and reach his own conclusions? How can I impart knowledge, and core values, and give him reign to think through the spaces himself?

Because I care about how he sees our history.

But his ability to craft his own lens, and to accommodate the views of others as he comes to know his core principles?

That matters far more, for our future.

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The Mundane…and the Profound

Posted on September 4, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I have been very occupied lately, even more than usual.

It means a lot of late nights working, which isn’t that different than normal, but also a lot of multitasking, trying to answer emails or respond to discussion boards while my kids are entertained by the dynamic duo of Phineas and Ferb.

Some of this is work that matters a great deal to me, some of which I hope to share here soon, including the conclusion of my technical assistance consulting for direct-service organizations in advocacy, strategy planning for how to use the defense of Kansas’ instate tuition law to build momentum among immigrant students granted deferred action, some potential civil rights litigation I think is very promising, a new advocacy evaluation collaborative with advocacy organizations and foundations in Kansas, work ‘translating’ the research of some of my social work colleagues (in the impact of asset accumulation on the college trajectories of low-income students), and an exciting project mapping the networks and advocacy capacity of entities working to combat obesity regionally.

Good stuff, really, and I feel very privileged to be part of it.

And some of what keeps me busy until the early morning is far more mundane, including a communications problem that forced me to redo my syllabi at the last minute, a new server which necessitated reloading all of my online content, a seemingly endless string of those Doodle meeting scheduling emails, and the so tiresome power struggles that are present everywhere, social justice advocacy not excluded.

As we pivot fully towards fall, and as my kids get into the rhythm of school (with its own mundane elements, certainly), I was thinking about how we stay focused on the profound.

On the central.

On the really, potentially, transformative.

And that made me think about my favorite moment of every day, after long daylight hours of mingling parenting and professionalizing, and before the longer nighttime hours of inverted workdays, when my oldest son and I have finished that day’s ‘bubblegum reading’, and I snuggle next to him and ask him what lullaby he wants.

And he inevitably chooses My Country ’tis of Thee, and then sings it with me, so that, every night, we end with a duet.

It’s not as well-pitched as his favorite version from Marion Anderson, on the steps of Liberty Memorial on that memorable Easter.

But for this Mommy, who can sometimes get too busy to remember,

it’s pretty profound.

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How to stop answering our own questions (and why)

Posted on August 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

My oldest son LOVES mysteries.

He even loves them when they’re no longer mysterious, as when we’ve read and/or listened to the Star Ruby Boxcar Children Mystery AT LEAST 10 times, so that he starts making ominous noises the first time the thief is introduced (I’ll spare you the spoiler).

Even when I make up stories to tell him, the ones that he likes the best have some surprises, some questions that he has to answer, or at least anticipate. I think it makes him feel part of the story, like he’s discovering the truth alongside the central characters.

And, you know, I think we’re all kind of like that.

I was thinking about Sam, and about those four orphans who have saved so many small businesses from petty nuisances, when I read Made to Stick.

The authors talk about creating a knowledge gap, a sort of mystery, so that people are curious and want to know more…so that we don’t have to twist their arms or cram the information down their throats.

Too often, because we know this story–whatever our issue is–backwards and forwards (we already know how we think it needs to end, too), we just barely open the door to this curiosity, before we slam it shut. And so we never give, for example, policymakers a chance to ask questions, or to go along with us on a journey, of sorts.

I tried this out the other day, giving a speech about the anti-immigrant laws that have caused so many problems in places like Alabama and Arizona. I started with a story, a story about an Iraqi War veteran who wanted to go for a drive in his pick-up truck in Alabama. Except that I didn’t rush through the story, even though the end is my favorite part, when he gets so mad about the new barriers that HB 56 has created in his life that he calls his state senator in outrage.

Because I wanted the audience to ask the questions: “WHY couldn’t this veteran get his car tags updated?” “WHY couldn’t he easily prove he was a U.S. citizen?” “WHY would Alabama want to make this difficult for him?”

Because those questions are the most important part.

But we don’t get there if we are too eager to solve the mystery, to give the answers, to wrap up our story.

It worked. They grumbled about how ridiculous it was, just like I wanted them to. They were confused, frustrated, and, ultimately, angry, just as I had hoped.

So I’m going to try to start my thinking about policy communications a little differently, from now on. Instead of beginning with a goal of what I want to say, or what I want to communicate to people, I’m going to start with thinking about what I want people to ask, what I want them to wonder.

I’m going to be intentional about creating that gap, so that they spend at least some mental energy wondering “WHY?”, so that, then, the answers that I do want to impart come as a sort of salve to a mental itch, a welcome respite.

We know that our work is important. To us, they are gripping, these challenges single mothers face in accessing affordable childcare, or the tribulations of the long-term unemployed, or the obstacles that face parents of a child with a serious disability.

We just have to tell the stories like they’re page-turners.

Because we can’t afford to let policymakers, or donors, or even that elusive ‘general public’, put us down.

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Why shouldn’t he want to be a tow-truck driver?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by | 5 Comments

My oldest son wants to be either an archaeologist or a tow-truck driver.

And when he gives that answer to the ubiquitous questioning of well-meaning adults, the response is almost always the same.

They nod when he says ‘archaeologist’ and laugh a bit when he talks about driving a tow truck.

It has always bothered me, the way that I cringe whenever someone jokes to a child about studying hard so that he/she won’t end up sacking groceries, or some other purportedly inferior occupation.

Because, really, who would you rather have around in a crisis–someone who can pull you out of a ditch, or someone who digs for fossils? I mean to say, what makes the former a perfectly respectable job and the latter obviously not, despite the contributions that both make to our overall society?

I don’t want Sam learning the lessons he undoubtedly absorbs from these repeated exchanges, the idea that economic status confers societal legitimacy, and that pursuit of that stature should drive his life plans.

And, so, it was with great parental, as well as policy advocate, interest that I read the part of The Spirit Level that presented evidence that children are more likely to aspire to lower-skilled work in more equal societies, because those jobs are more adequately (and accurately) valued in societies with greater equality.

And, without the stigma that attaches to jobs disdained in our highly unequal economy, kids are free to choose the occupations that seem terrific to their yet-untainted-by-inequality minds.

Like driving a big truck that can carry around big cars.

Setting aside my parental angst, there are policy reasons to care about how the next generation views its work, especially because we’ll always need tow-truck drivers.

With many of the fastest-growing industries those with comparably low wages, we have to confront our ever-increasing demand for occupations that are poorly compensated. Are we content to be a society where those who take care of us are not taken care of? Will some of these most critical jobs, then, continue to be filled by those who couldn’t make it to the truly-valued (although not always as productive) upper echelons?

Or do we want an economy, and a society, where hard work and meaningful contributions are rewarded adequately?

If so, we know how to get there: robust protection of labor laws, strong unions, progressive tax policies to finance a vibrant safety net.

And then we need to stop teaching harmful lessons to children like Sam, especially since we all claim to wish that we had careers that we chose for sheer love of the job, like the way his eyes shine when he sees those strong cranes on the back of a tow truck.

Because you could do a lot worse than to have him come to your aid on the side of the road.

We all could.

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