We've gotten lots of news coverage and now we have a meeting with the mayor scheduled at city hall AND a larger community meeting at the library with the mayor and the library director.
Today I spoke at a press conference at our grand, imposing State Capitol with three mayors, fire fighters, and police officers to publicize the impact of state budget cuts that penalize cities unfairly rather than spreading the misery of our current economy around a little more evenly. I had my 3-year-old daughter with me, at the press conference organizers' request and also because she said she wanted to stay with me.
It was exhilarating to have a voice in the larger debate and to do it as a mother, with my daughter along. So often, mothers' voices just don't get heard in the halls of power. As a mother, though, at times I felt uncomfortable, even a little sick at heart, at the ways my daughter and I were being used as political props and my own participation in that process. The first time we encountered a reporter in the Capitol rotunda and she tried to interview me with the camera rolling, my daughter got so scared of the big microphone and the lights, she got hysterical, and I had to tell the reporter, sorry, this isn't going to work and gave up. I started to feel a little frustrated about my daughter's unwillingness to cooperate, but I pulled myself together and we went down to the cafeteria and had a nice snack and a talk.
I told her I really needed to be able to talk at the press conference to try to save our library, and I needed to do it without her screaming or squirming or trying to run away. I told her if the cameras were too scary, I could drop her off to play with a friend of ours who was already watching my son, but my daughter said no--she didn't want to be with their cat Nonie. I am not proud of it, but I worked the fear-of-Nonie angle a little to leverage some cooperation out of her. I was, I hate to say, terrified of the prospect of trying to speak to a bunch of people in suits with cameras on and having my daughter make me look like a bad mother. I also genuinely wanted my chance to make the case that our neighborhood really needs our library to stay open.
In the end, she did fine at the press conference. She scored all sorts of swag from strapping men in uniforms and suits--a miniature police badge, a Junior Crimefighter sticker, and a lapel pin from the mayor of Wadena, Minnesota. At one point she got a little restless while one of the mayors was talking (we were all standing up in front as a unified group), so I sat her down between my feet with a Where's Waldo book. I was both happy and a little horrified when a cameraman aimed a camera right in her face while she paged through the book. I knew this was a great image to publicize the plight of our library and the value of kids loving to read. But it was my daughter I was turning into a poster child without her really giving me permission to do that, and I felt conflicted about it.
So. I'm finding that as a mother, as I put myself out there to stand up for what I believe, I need to also figure out what role I want my children to play in that--if any. It's so tempting to get them involved--I love the idea of being a family of activists and showing them early in life how to speak up for change. And they're just so darn photogenic, it makes it really attractive to use them to get attention for my cause. But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I really don't know if it's the right way to treat these little people I love so much.
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