‘Grannies protect what they love:’ Why my mom joined the Women’s March
They're in their 70s, mostly, and they carried hand-lettered granny signs:
They're passionate about the environment, and President
"Our environment is the underpinning of every single thing in our lives," my mom, 72, said over tomato soup after the march. "If we fail to recognize our natural resources as our means to life, we do it at our own peril."
But the environment was only one reason they marched.
"It's time to stop saying, 'That's awful' and time to start doing something about it,"
Resistance is painted as the province of the young. But my mom and her friends feel a deep, personal connection to the issues at hand: access to affordable health care, reproductive rights, wage parity, clean air.
"We were stopped repeatedly because of our granny signs,"
Muntz joined
"Brethren men could declare conscientious objection to the Vietnam War," she said. "That and fair housing were big issues for the church in the '70s. It horrified my mom, but looking back, I see at that stage in my life I was finally seeing who I was and what I believed in."
Why stop now?
My mom didn't protest the Vietnam War. Her husband, my dad, was enlisted in the
But I wonder if that time didn't plant the seeds of action.
My whole life I've watched her advocate for her beliefs. She was going door-to-door to drum up support for land restoration and open space protection in an era when recycling seemed radical. She traveled to
She lives her principles.
And that's what I saw Saturday, times hundreds of thousands: Women and men, girls and boys, mothers and daughters and grannies, living their principles.
It does.
"I think silence is compliance,"
"Trump keeps telling me he's for the common man," she said. "But I have nothing in common with this man."
She was aghast when he bragged about forcing himself on women and appalled when he mocked a disabled reporter. She is equally bothered by his denial of climate change science. The march, she said, reminded her she wasn't alone.
"I needed to feel like I was part of something bigger," she said.
The march was bigger than expected, and it felt bigger, frankly, than Trump. Marchers gathered in
"This is the upside of the downside,"
The marches were met with their fair share of cynicism (what's the point?), skepticism (will they keep it up?) and criticism (no unified message).
"My only fear is that many were marching for 2,500 causes," a friend of mine posted on Facebook. "We will only change things if we galvanize behind one cause."
I saw one cause. I saw people taking to the streets -- some for the first time, some, like my mom and her friends, out of long-established habit -- to remind their new leader to whom he answers.
I have a copy of the
"The
In his inaugural address, Trump promised to cede power to the people. "Today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another," he said. "But we are transferring power from
As my mom's friend
@heidistevens13
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