This piece by Brenna Burke was cross-posted at Almost All The Truth.
My kids are still little. I am not sure they really understand the concept of Mother’s Day at all, which is really fine by me. I suppose that makes it all the more easier to shape it into something that we would like for it to be rather than have expectations placed upon us about what it has to be.
I was handed a Mother’s Day art piece when I picked up my preschooler on Thursday. He was obviously quite proud of the work that he had done. And he made sure to point out it was just for me.
I was given a card made in the first grade class when I picked my son up from his school on Friday. Again with obvious pride. The inside of the card said that I was pretty and smart and caring with a drawing of me to go alongside.
And that is enough.
And yet it isn’t.
I don’t need flowers or chocolates or jewelry (although perhaps an iPhone to get me out of the cell phone stone ages). But I do need something more.
I often talk about the fights I will fight for my children. I often talk about my belief that their health and the health of their world should not be compromised for profit. I often talk about what I will do, what I believe, and what kind of world I want for them. We mothers have such responsibility, and all too often not enough respect or support from the people charged with making decisions that have the greatest impact on our health, on the quality of the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.
Today, for Mother’s Day, I want to know that my children will not have to pick up this fight in twenty years.
I expect that my children won’t take the lives they have been given for granted.
I expect that they, and their generation, will fight for their humanity in this world we have given them.
I expect that I will teach my children well enough to grow up, to be successful, to make a positive difference in this world in some way.
I know that there are mothers the world over that want the same things and are fighting to get them.
But I don’t want for them to have to fight this fight.
What I want and what we all need is for the world’s leaders of all shapes, sorts, and sizes to understand that our children deserve to grow up in a world where chemicals are tested for safety before entering the market toxic pesticides with proven adverse health effects are not allowed near their food, no one would dream of touching the Clean Air Act unless it were to make it stronger, and where a person like me that likes to research and share the things that might harm the health of a child or her environment would have a lot of extra time on her hands to play with her children.
This piece is part of the Moms Clean Air Force Blog Carnival: A Mother’s Day Gift.