*Disclaimer: I believe this to be true as long as we don’t take our foot of the gas and continue to push through the next two weeks!
Mr. RenaRF and I live in a nice end unit townhouse in Northern Virginia – we’ve been here for years. Back in 2004, we got new neighbors immediately next door. We’re neighborly people – we like to have relationships with our neighbors, sometimes have a cookout and hang out with them, help out whenever possible, you name it. It’s how we’re wired.
The new neighbors in 2004 were a single father and his then 8-year old daughter. Let’s call her “Katie” for the sake of privacy. Over the first year or so we learn from the dad, let’s call him “Harry”, that Katie’s mom is still in the picture but that the mom has mental health issues – untreated bi-polar disorder – which is why he’s raising Katie pretty much single-handedly without the mom’s involvement outside of a few visits here and there.
Harry’s a GREAT Dad. He’s quiet and reserved, but really funny when you gain his trust and he opens the kimono a bit here and there. When she was younger, he had Katie involved in all kinds of activities, to include martial arts. They’re so involved and she’s so good at the particular area of martial arts that she’s pursuing that she would go on throughout junior high and high school to travel the world competing (and most often winning) at the international junior level. Stuff like that.
As Katie got slightly older – tween into teen – she was a traditional latch-key kid, home from school several hours before Harry would get home from work. By that time, I was working from home pretty exclusively and if Katie needed something or had a problem, she (and her Dad) knew she could come next door and ask for help or come in and hang out if she was feeling lonely or scared of something. Stuff like that. She had no stable mother figure in her life and while I didn’t fill that role, I believe I did fill the role of an older female “counsel” to her when needed.
As she grew older and graduated high school, we were there. When her Dad finally remarried someone that Katie wasn’t thrilled with, we were there for her to talk to, as much as she felt comfortable talking about it. My husband and I took her lunch or brought lunch in multiple times through that episode (ca. 2018 when she was a junior in college) just to give her a place to put her thoughts and to provide careful counsel if she indicated she needed it. When her Dad sold his house next door and moved about twenty minutes away after marrying, I was the one who helped them get the last bits they couldn’t’ fit in the cars or van (her two cats!) to the new house when they reached the deadline to get out of the one that was sold. We were her extended family right next door.
I remember in 2016 talking with Katie about the upcoming election, the first Presidential election in which she was able to vote. We never explicitly talked politics with them. They knew how our household was wired politically, because we made it very obvious with our yard signs. 😊 I was pretty dismayed, after carefully probing Katie about the upcoming 2016 election, to find out that Katie didn’t like either of them, Clinton or Trump. I did what I could within her comfort zone to underscore the importance of voting etc. (e.g, I did my thing) but I never got a commitment from Katie that she would vote at all. These conversations are tricky, as you can imagine. What I took from Katie at that time was a general level of apathy, a “what does it matter?” attitude that was probably consistent with her generation. She was a young, cuspy Zoomer.
Katie graduated college and was accepted into medical school. I had a long conversation with her after her undergraduate graduation about the gobsmacking student loans she was going to have to take to go to medical school - $250K! But she was committed to it and she had her plans. She was (and is) always a smart, hard-working young woman who did what she needed to do to accomplish her goals.
Katie initially thought that she would do her residency in pediatrics, but after med school graduation wound up going into psychiatry – particularly the kind that works with those who find themselves on the illegal side of the judicial system and require psychiatric care. She took a residency in Florida for her final educational step. She and I always keep in touch, because she’s a cat lover – she suffered a loss earlier this year of one of her cats, and I was there to help coach her through her decision making process. We had talked about whether or not she was concerned about being in any kind of medicine in Florida with its draconian abortion restrictions, as well as a general attitude against mental health issues. She was pretty noncommittal during that conversation, so I just left it alone.
Yesterday I opened Instagram and saw that she had posted a story – this was notable for the simplest reason that she rarely posts on IG, let alone a story. The story was about the rising rate of infant mortality particularly in Texas, but also about the same issue in all of the states with total or near-total abortion bans. She posted it without comment. Interesting.
This morning I opened IG to see that she had posted another story. I’ve cropped the picture to keep her anonymous, but here you go:
She’s in her late twenties, has never voted before, and made a point to vote today after yesterday posting the story about rising infant mortality rates due to strict abortion bans. She rarely posts on social media, but made a point to do so today along with ensuring everyone knew she was a first-time voter! Do the math. 😊
Earlier in this story I mentioned apathy when discovering that she had no plans and saw no need to vote in the 2016 election, the first Presidential election where she could vote. It appears she also sat out the 2020 Presidential election. But on the abortion issue alone (seemingly), she was moved not only to vote, but to vote for the first time in Florida and to ensure she publicized that choice to her friends and family.
I’ve screamed out loud many times at the minimization of the abortion issue in this election on behalf of the mainstream media. “People are most concerned about the economy.” In my chats with persuadable voters, however, I’ve pointed out that women and their advocates can hold two thoughts (even more!) in their heads at once. They can be concerned about the economy and concerned about Trump and Dobbs making them less equal than the other 49% of the population. They’re also smart and on a general level know that economies are cyclical. They can see that inflation is easing, that we are slowing pulling upward out of that downward trend. Basic human rights, however, aren’t cyclical. We won’t ease our way out of the loss of our fundamental equality and rights.
We have to VOTE our way out of that one.
I know there’s a lot of stress and anxiety out there right now, and I get it. I wanted to share this one anecdotal story, however, because it’s what I’m seeing and feeling out there. Women remain pissed, and this issue alone — aside from all the other great reasons to vote for Harris/Walz — is motivating younger Zoomer voters to vote for the first time. At least, the Zoomer Katie I highlight in my story.
We can DO THIS. We ARE doing this. Keep doing it — two weeks to go!!!
