Hey, y'all -
On Election Day, I picked Laney up at the bus stop and we walked to our neighborhood polling place. I waited to vote 'til I could take her with me, because I wanted to stress how important it is for you to participate in the election process. It's the least one can do as a concerned citizen; I've spent the last week thinking about the 43% of registered voters who couldn't be bothered.
On the way to vote, we talked about how it wasn't so long ago that women weren't allowed to vote at all - when Granny Jack's mom was Laney's age, it was illegal for women. Laney found that surprising.
Pamphlets from the late 1800s / early 1900s declared that women's suffrage would put America under "Petticoat Rule," and political cartoons seemed to suggest that the only women who would want the vote are the single, ugly ones, or the mothers who don't care about their families. That's something Laney and I discuss often: that sometimes, when people want to criticize a woman's thoughts or ideas, the first thing they'll do it call her fat or ugly. That's the lazy man's go-to way to demean a woman. So we try to always remember that our worth has very little to do with our outward appearance.
Laney took a picture of me filling out what I'd hoped would be an historic ballot, then we went home to watch the election returns with a US map and a dry erase marker.
In the end, it didn't go our way. That happens sometimes.
Your dad and I lost some sleep over it. I know this, because at 4:28am a few days after the election, he got up and wrote this:
There you have it. Your dad communicates the same way Hagen eats: A lot, all at once. One day, he'll probably run for public office and I will endeavor not to be a liability to the campaign.
I saw this tweet the other day, and it made me tear up a little:
...because maybe the girl she's talking about spent the night of Nov 8, 2016 coloring in the electoral college map with her favorite markers.
Love,
Mom
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