Today is Independence Day. For many reasons, this year it doesn’t feel like a day to celebrate. But it does feel like a day to reflect. A day to speak out.
I actually started writing this piece nearly two years ago. Or at least I thought I did. I can’t find evidence that I actually got any words on paper. As is often the case, perhaps they were just concepts that have been stuck in my head. Today, on July 4, 2020, during a time where it is abundantly clear that the freedoms of many Americans are violently lacking, I think it’s important to finally get it all out.
Independence is one of my highest values. Some of my earliest memories revolve around doing things on my own. Tying my shoes. Learning to read. I can still remember the sense of freedom that came with not needing someone else’s help. I got an alarm clock for my birthday when I turned 6, the summer before kindergarten. It was the twin bell kind that are now considered vintage. It was pink and white and the hands glowed in the dark. I can still remember the sound of its ring. From that day on, I’d get myself up every morning, make my own breakfast, pack my lunch and be ready for Dad to take me to school. (Or at least that’s how I remember it. My parents may have a different version of that memory). I’m pretty sure as a kindergartener I felt like I was ready for college.
I’ll never forget the first time I drove with no one else in the car with me and how amazing that felt. Getting the keys to the first condo I bought. There are so many milestones that have made me feel independent and proud. As I reflect on them now, it’s easy to see that I actually did none of those things alone. The abundance of support and resources I’ve always had in my life is very clear. This doesn’t take away from my hard work, my drive and motivation. But the privileges that I was born into sure as hell made it easier for me to feel so full and free.
Driven in part by my independent nature, when I hit my mid 30s I decided I had the capacity to become a single foster mom. I had a very deep maternal need burning inside me and I knew that there were children in need of temporary parents.
Justice came to me in the form of an 18-month-old boy. I was showing pictures of him at work shortly after he was placed with me. “His name is Justice,” I remember telling a colleague. “Of course it is,” she replied with a smile. Only days into becoming a parent to a toddler I was still mostly focused on surviving each day. I honestly hadn’t thought about how beautiful his name was. But in that moment she helped me, if only for a few seconds, to tune out all the craziness and to ground myself in the meaning behind my decisions to take this on. I remember how good it felt in that brief pause to be told that the universe trusted me to not only love and care for this child but to also hold truth to his name. It was several months before I started to really see and feel the meaning.
The freedoms I had before I became a parent (and in the times in between my foster parenting chapters) are endless. As a white, single, educated, employed, healthy (the list goes on) woman in my 30s, every day of my life could really look however I wanted it to. I spent lots of weeknights at happy hour, volunteering on weekends, traveling when the opportunity arose. This freedom to be in control of my life that I had been dreaming of (or waking up to) since I was 6 years old was living out beautifully.
When you become a parent you give up a lot of those freedoms. Your time no longer belongs to only you. Your home no longer belongs to only you. Your heart will never again belong to only you. As I settled into being Justice’s foster mom and life started feeling a little less chaotic, this realization of the freedoms I had given up for Justice really began setting in. I slept less, I saw my friends less, I dated less, I lost my ability to be a super high performer at work. So many things about my life changed. While I was exhausted and honestly felt like I was failing at everything, at the same time I had absolutely no regrets about the path I had chosen. My privilege in choosing that path began to sit very heavily on my heart.
If I had held on to all of the freedom that my life allowed, not only would I not know and love Justice, my eyes would still be closed to the injustice that exists within systems like foster care.
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
— unknown
We can only help so much from the outside. It wasn’t until I shared meals, laughed and cried with Justice’s birth parents that I truly understood what justice (and Justice) meant to them. I had to love them fully and begin to feel just a portion of their pain before I really got it. In this situation, justice meant giving two teenagers the time, resources and support they needed to become safe and stable parents. They worked so hard and had to overcome so many obstacles. All I had to do was give up a little bit of freedom. (Including freedom from pain, which you can read about in my last post).
I was recently talking with a group of friends about what we can be doing as white women to support anti-racist work. One of the women reminded us all that we have to be willing to give up things that our privilege has allowed us to have for our entire lives. It was a reminder that I needed. I say all of this not to be the hero of anyone’s story. I share about my journey to encourage you, on this day of independence, to think about freedoms you may be willing to give up so that justice (and Justice — and all kids like him) is served.