Mom

by Angela Welch Stucker on May 13, 2012

This is a hard post to write, but I didn’t get a Mother’s Day card in the mail (sorry Mom, I am a horrible child).

Hard because I wanted to write a thank you letter to my mom, but it feels way too daunting a task. What could I say, how could I possibly find a way to express all of the things she’s done for me, all of the things she’s given me, all of the things that have made me the person I am today?

And even if I did find a way to do that, find a way to tell her these things, while all of them are important, there really is only one gift that matters when we talk about moms. When I talk about my mom.

But if I did make that list, it would have to include these things at least:

  • I would talk about being a latchkey kid; I didn’t have a stay-at-home mom like most of my friends. Sometimes it was lonely but there were definite benefits – I learned to cook, and, unlike most of my friends, got to watch Dark Shadows every afternoon. I learned how to do things for myself, that it was okay to be independent, and smart, and capable. I also learned that women, that moms, work.
  • I would say how cool, and how pretty my mom is. I always thought she looked like Mary Tyler Moore. Or actually, that Mary Tyler Moore looked like my mom. I could list all of the times growing up that I would look at her and think, wow, my mom is the coolest mom ever.
  • I would tell you about the things she did that scarred me for life – like the time we watched “Night of the Hunter” when I was around eight. I am still scared to death of Robert Mitchum and Shelly Winters.
  • I would tell you about the time on a visit home from college, that my mom, taking me aside after a poorly timed comment in front of my cop step-father about recreational substance use, enlightened me to the concept of “need to know basis.”
  • I would have to include the time I accomplished something or other, I honestly don’t remember what it was, and I was upset that she didn’t tell me she was proud of me. When I asked her why, she said “of course I’m proud of you, I am always proud of you.”

I could go on, but I don’t want to be writing this until next Mother’s Day.

So, here’s what I would have said in the card that I didn’t manage to get mailed:

Dear Mom,

We’ve had our ups and downs lately and there have been times when I wanted something from you that I thought I wasn’t getting – I wanted you to be proud of me even if you didn’t agree with my choices. And then I got thinking that it’s kind of unfair how we all want unconditional love from our parents, but it doesn’t seem to be much of a two way street – we don’t often talk about unconditional love for our parents. And then you called me out of the blue and told me you were proud of me.

I started to make a list of all the things that you’ve done for me, all of the gifts you’ve given me, all that I’ve learned from you, but partway through I realized that while those things are all great, there’s really one thing that matters, one thing that trumps all the others – you are always there for me. I always know that I have a home to go to, and that it is wherever you are. What a gift that is. To know that wherever I am, there is someone, there is my mom, who will always take me in, always be there no matter what.

Thank you for that Mom. Thank you for everything, and happy Mother’s Day.

I love you,

Angela

P.S. And thanks for always being the coolest mom around.

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Occupy Your Life

by Angela Welch Stucker on May 4, 2012

I had coffee with a friend on Tuesday. We started meeting to discuss ways we can help each other with some of the individual projects we are working on. It was really nice to see her, it’s been awhile, and working for yourself you start to miss having somebody to yell to over the copy machine – hey, what do you think about this? Not surprisingly, it turns out that her big passion, or so as not to totally speak for her when she’s not here, the thing she’s working on now is something I’ve been thinking about a lot too – how to change the way we measure success from a scale based on profit to one based on sustainability. So we started talking about that, and in short order, the conversation turned to Occupy Wall Street.

Tuesday was May Day and Occupy Wall Street General Strike Day. Something like thirty thousand in Manhattan. Occupy is still here. Actually, Occupy never left. I’ve had several people ask me about OWS since the day in September when the Occupiers were not-so-gently removed from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Will they be back? Does this mean it’s over? What are they doing now? So, here are my answers (and they’re just my answers I’m not an Occupy expert) to those questions – They never left. Only if you let it. What are YOU doing now?

The other questions about Occupy, mostly asked by people who never attended an Occupy event, or looked much further than the first paragraph of an article dismissive of Occupy written by a journalist who had spent little or no time at any Occupy events – always start with something along the lines of “I wish they would have….” “They really need to …..” “They’ll never accomplish anything if they don’t….”

Well, guess what? There is no “They!” No, that is incorrect – the “They” is you, the “They” is me, the “They” is all of us.

This is what living in a democracy means – we are all responsible. If you want to let the “They” do everything for you, whether it’s a movement or the running of your government, because you don’t want to have to do the work of being an informed and active citizen, then go for it. Don’t be too surprised if you wake up one day to find that that government you assumed was running smoothly, isn’t. Or it is, running quite smoothly in fact, but not for your benefit, just for the benefit of a tiny percentage of the population. Oh, wait, we already have that.

In The Nation magazine, Allison Kilkenny wrote in her piece, “Massive May Day Turnout Highlights Media’s Disconnect from Reality,” “none of us are capable of understanding the trajectory of this movement precisely because nothing like it has existed before.”

So if you think Occupy has “failed” then it has, because it’s failed to get you out of the observer seat in your arm chair and mobilized to do something about something you care about. If you think the Occupy movement should be focused on campaign finance reform – then you need to get involved in the campaign finance reform movement. Money out of politics? I’ll send you links. The problems with Wall Street that led to the 2008 Lehman Brothers meltdown, which in turn was the catalyst leading to the depression we are still in? Read the 325 page document written by people active in Occupy and sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s a pretty remarkable document actually, and you’ll finally understand what “propriety trading” is. Sustainability? Email me.

OWS energized me. It still does. And not because people marched and “boom” everything was suddenly wonderful. No, OWS shone a light on the things that are wrong in our country, and it did it creatively, passionately, and in an instant, everything changed. Where will it lead? I don’t know, but I do know it won’t be the place we were headed before, and that is a good thing. But you can feel free, it’s still the U.S.A. you have the right, to be a cynic, to be a naysayer, to sit back and complain that nobody ever does anything right.

Or you can stop being an observer and start participating. It’s up to you.

We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.

 

 

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What Not to Wear

by Angela Welch Stucker on April 9, 2012

One of my favorite guilty pleasure TV shows is “What Not to Wear” on TLC. In case you’re not familiar it’s a makeover show; two hosts, Stacy and Clinton, find women across the country who are in need of a new wardrobe. I need a new wardrobe! Who doesn’t like makeover shows? So I did a WNTW marathon last night and was laughing a bit watching these otherwise super capable women have complete melt-downs after five minutes in the dressing room. Yeah, ha ha, funny right?

Then it hit me that maybe I shouldn’t laugh because God knows I’ve been there too. How many times have I cringed at the thought of trying on bathing suits, or tried to keep my eyes averted while passing the “skinny” jeans section on my way to the “fat” jeans section. Are there any women who haven’t? Two maybe. And I was doing this almost as often when I weighed 110 pounds as I do now when I weigh, let’s just say more than 110 pounds.

While finding clothes that fit is a huge (ha ha) issue for some of us, the issue beneath that issue is the reason this show resonates. The message they try to project on WNTW is one that I whole-heartedly agree with – that women should embrace all of who we are – we can be professional and sexy, and maternal and ambitious, and girly and tough, and on and on. And, of course, one very important way we do that is through our choices in how we dress. And this is the real issue that turns women to mush when they go shopping for clothes, because while that sounds awesome and superhero-ish in theory, it can be paralyzing. That’s a lot of choices to make.

While it can sound silly to think about a woman falling apart over a decision on skirt length, or if it’s still okay to wear jeans “at her age,” this is just an extension of questions we ask ourselves every day. And these are not frivolous questions. They can’t be frivolous when in the back of our minds is the knowledge that not terribly long ago, if one of us was assaulted, we would have been “asking for it” if we wore “provocative” clothing, and that in some parts of the world, right now, as we speak, a woman can be killed for answering “incorrectly,” the question of skirt length.

Before you start thinking that I’m blowing things out of proportion, I’d ask – what about you guys out there. Do you plan a wardrobe strategy? Do you stand at your closet and think, “hmm, what image do I want to project today?” Or wonder if it’s safe for you to wear those pants? And then – what about waking up one morning to find that the right you take for granted, the right of full sovereignty over your own body, is in jeopardy?

However the more conservative members of our government protest that it is otherwise, they are lying; they are most assuredly engaging in a war on women’s rights. What century are we in again?

While women obviously need to step up to the plate, we all need to rally on this one. I remember one day in second or third grade my mom wasn’t around that particular morning so my step-dad was helping me get ready for school. It was an unusually cold day and he pulled out a sweater and a pair of wool pants. “I can’t wear that,” I said staring at the clothes. “Why not?” And I told him that girls couldn’t wear pants to school. That would change soon, thanks to the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in case you were wondering. The thing I remember thinking so clearly at that moment was how could he not know that? So, I’m asking a favor of all of my wonderful male friends out there. Just for the hell of it – I would ask that you take a few moments out of your day today and pick a woman you care about – daughter, co-worker, wife – and ask her if she thinks there is a war on women. Ask her what she thinks about male politicians justifying legislation requiring vaginal ultrasounds if she needs an abortion, or opposition to equal pay legislation, or taking away coverage of her birth control medications under her health plan. Ask her to tell you as best as she can, what challenges she faces, ask her how things could be better for her. It doesn’t matter so much how you phrase the question as long as the question involves what it is like for her in her day-to-day life, being a woman right here and now. The next part of the assignment is maybe even more important – promise that you will listen – and then do. You may be surprised at what you hear.

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