Our baby girl is 19 months old and going through typical growing pains, causing her to want more milk than usual. Like many parents, we're antsy about access to baby formula. For months at our local Target and grocery stores, paper signs are taped to near-empty shelves to remind parents of purchasing limits. We order from Bobbie, and they recently stopped stocking in stores (which were already limited anyway due to a formula monopoly here). They notified my husband that we could no longer order more than our subscription so that current customers could keep their standard monthly cans.
Our local independent baby shop also carries Hipp and Holle, so Cody purchased a can for Willow to try. The entire can is in German. He spent a chunk of time translating on the internet the scoop-to-water ratio, but she seems to be enjoying the holdover milk until our next Bobbi shipment.
Being a mother in America is wild. Destiny's Child, Bills, Bills, Bills comes to mind.
At first, we started out real cool
Takin' me places I ain't never been
But now, you're getting comfortable
Ain't doin' those things you did no more
You're slowly makin' me pay for things
Your money should be handling
And now you ask to use my car (Car)
Drive it all day and don't fill up the tank
And you have the audacity
To even come and step to me and
Ask to hold some money from me
Until you get yo' check next week
Why does it feel like I need to sing that to the three branches of government? Also, I was hating hard on Beyonce's new song Break My Soul because what does the Queen know about the 9-5 struggle? But my friend Katherine was like, girl, it's the truth. She's right.
You won't break my soul is a good anthem right now.
People are in so much pain. Friends of every age and stage of life are wrestling through challenging realities. Bills are barely getting paid. Relationships are struggling. The wealth gap is growing and people moving to different cities is regularly disrupting communities, churches, and connections. Even though we’re all hurting, in the wake of Roe, I'm choosing to focus this writing on parents and mothers.
Because we don't have what we need. Economic class and race compound this problem. Parents don't have affordable childcare. They don't have affordable housing or healthcare. Our children have no modern education system unless they live in the right neighborhood or are rich enough to access it. Add in the rising costs of diapers, gas, groceries, flights for multiple children, ages, sports commitments, and the personal loss of autonomy, rest, recreation, and phew… We are bone tired, stressed out, and without the political, economic, or societal infrastructure to offer relief. On top of that, Covid changed our weekly, organic capacity to let our lives overlap. Because of remote work, digital church, take-out, drive-thrus, and deliveries, we are less likely to interface naturally for hugs, hellos, and presence in our daily lives.
And mothers, my God. Our bodies are destroyed by pregnancy, infertility, infant loss, childbirth, vaginal tears, breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, big life-altering decisions, chronic fatigue, illness, and pain. 81% of mothers in America work full-time. What's the famous phrase? We expect women to work like they don't have children and raise children like they don't work.
I am a child of the eighties who started babysitting at ten.
Outside my mama's car, we sat on books instead of car seats. We were rogue, wild, and feral up to our thighs in creek water, checking heads for lice and ticks. We couldn't come inside the house before dinner. We lived on hamburger helper, hot pockets, pot roast, and white people queso made from Velveeta in a
crock pot. We played sports at the YMCA and played Nintendo during the weekend hours. I used to cross-stitch patterns next to my mom, read books, and write poetry in the basement by the light of a Yankee candle.
The 80s were tough for poor and working-class families. War ravaged the Earth. Inflation and rising interest rates crushed people. I knew things were hard, and looking back, it's easy to see the stress of working parents trying to raise little kids, but as a child, I felt shielded from the realities our community faced. At home, we were a relatively quiet bunch. We stuck to our corners of the house. Reading, playing video games, flipping through magazines, eating snacks. We didn’t sit around the table talking about news or grief. TGIF was the one evening we gathered together, packing around the couch, ready for Urkel and Step by Step, and the other two I can't remember now. It felt like a load off. I could sense my parents exhale, and we did too.
I'm ashamed to admit it now, but I did not understand what my parents were going through. Until you live it, there is no way to really get it. My eyes and heart hold them with so much grace now. Our first baby was born in Los Angeles. We'd gotten a great deal on our first house in the valley and were able to put down 20% to avoid PMI charges. We had no debt, and we aren't big spenders. I've never been one to impress people with my car and clothes. I'd rather have no monthly payments and shop at Target.
But moving to Manhattan was the first time I understood the amount of stress and pressure on parents. It's bizarre to say you're poor living in a place like Manhattan. It sounds completely ridiculous, like a terrible personal choice. In a way, it is, and it was. But unless you get affordable housing (which is available to people with a household income of less than $150,000), or get handed down an apartment from the generation before you that is now dirt cheap rent, or a job that pays an insane amount of money, it's a real struggle to stay there. For many months we didn't know how we'd make it, and we left with medical debt for the first time in our marriage from a very expensive birth.
If you've never had to call insurance companies and hospitals to negotiate a $28K labor bill while nursing a one-week-old, are you even a mom in America?
Regarding affordability, our experience in Manhattan is not that different from many middle-class families and their economic struggles. Two-thirds of households in America are living paycheck to paycheck. The homeownership rate is 65%. While many homeowners may have several cars, food on the table, some credit card, or school debt, they'd be in a real pickle if one major event happened. One car is breaking down—one cancer diagnosis. One medical diagnosis. One sewer replacement. I know Dave Ramsey would like us to believe we are struggling this hard because we all drink too much Starbucks and haven't learned the snowball debt method, but the truth is rising costs are at an all-time high.
People on all sides of the political spectrum are making reels about gas and posting pictures of Joe Biden at the gas pump. The President doesn't set the gas prices, but I get it. We all want someone to blame. We all want to spew our vitriol and stress at someone we feel should be doing something.
Never mind that we are irresponsible with our local and state voting opportunities where we decide who will lead as judges, sheriffs, city council members, superintendents, and congressional representatives who will fight to the death over politics while we suffer during their standstill. On average, less than 30% of people show up at the polls to elect people whose salary we will pay and whose judgment will govern our society.
But by golly, the President should do something! The minimum wage has barely increased nationwide since 2007, with some exceptions. Obama and Biden made that happen, but even then, Congress only raised it to $7.25 from $6.90, which took two years to go into effect in 2009. (Before 2007, the minimum wage remained stuck at $5.15 for ten years straight.) In the middle of the most significant recession since 1980, American workers received .35 on the hour for their trouble.
I remember those days. I worked retail in high school and college as a waitress for many years, where the hourly pay was $2.25 an hour. Because obviously, they assumed tips would be enough. Sometimes it is. I worked as a cocktail waitress in a dueling piano bar, making hundreds of dollars a night, but I was required to deal with butt slaps, kissing attempts, and condescending "Come here honey - give us another round" remarks. I worked as a domestic worker, nannying for families, personal assisting tv writers, and picking up freelance jobs to make ends meet. I earned my chops in difficult cities and found joy and genuine relationships in my poverty.
But hear me when I tell you: People who say money cannot buy happiness have never been poor.
Now that I live in suburbia again, and many of the people in my life are not struggling financially (but definitely struggling with Earth), I remind myself regularly what it felt like to have two kids and not be able to pay bills. I have a good job and I’m lucky to work from home, so I remind myself what it felt like to pick up extra shifts and work a double for fourteen hours to afford my rent. I must always remember what it felt like to be on my feet for 12 hours, to have to smile and nod at condescending people, to take care of myself. Proximity is power. I never want to lose my grip on the pain people endure just to wake up and put their feet on the floor every morning.
The only way this whole thing works is if there's an underbelly suffering in silence, thinking that if they were better, worked harder, had the right connections, or weren't such a screw-up, they wouldn't be struggling. It makes me sob if I sit with it too long. In a country of self-determination, we spend an inordinate amount of implicit time communicating to people what they are not and will never be.
Money matters, and we don't talk about it enough.
The decision to hand abortion back to the states scares me. Not only because the states with trigger bans to make abortion illegal have some of the highest rates of poverty, child poverty, maternal death, and lack of societal support (like paid leave, higher minimum wage, programs for babies and preschoolers) but because rates of criminalization and lack of accountability for men who abuse, assault, and impregnate women, are higher.
I hope pro-life people in these states will be more than pro-birth because we are at their mercy. I hope churches will prepare themselves for the aftermath of illegal abortions and the increased shame from women who have already had them in their pews. I hope they are ready to teach their men to be accountable for their sexual choices. I hope they are prepared for domestic violence or sexual assault victims to have no other option but to raise a child with a violent, abusive person. I hope they are ready to advocate for women who may be criminalized or face severe fines for their decisions.
I hope they understand what it means for women to lose their right to privacy.
I hope they will go against the grain of their political party that does not support universal childcare, educational programs for children, paid leave that is more than $700 per month, or affordable housing and healthcare. I hope that as political and active as they have been to ban Roe, they will now direct that advocacy toward something more helpful and essential. I have little faith they will, and I am deeply grieved because pro-birth is not enough.
But I have hope in a redemptive God who loves us and cares for us, forgives us and guides us, and does not legislate his morality onto us but gives us free will.
I want to shake people and why can’t you see? Why can’t you understand? Do you know how policy breaks down to a person? This is not just about babies. Many people, many women, many children, live at an unbearable disadvantage. It is our responsibility as believers and citizens in our nation to correct that injustice. In our anger and fear, I hope we rise in compassion as a tender, merciful people who will be pro-life from birth to death. Christ have mercy on those who must mother in impossible conditions.
I never want to be a person who sits high on a throne of judgment but someone who is deeply in touch with human brokenness and injustice and deeply in tune with God's mercy. Scripture says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.1"
Come alive, brave one, lit aflame by love and righteousness. Let your passion for people lead you now. May you practice the ministry of presence and embody the humility of Christ. I pray that God will give you wisdom and understanding so that mercy and neighborliness will be your indelible mark on others.
Blessing you in my prayers this evening, as I finish my dinner, after hours. Wish you were here with me sharing a meal and sharing your wisdom and concerns. Please feel free to email or share with the community what’s on your mind. We value your voice.
The Weight Podcast: From Womb to Tomb - The best interview I’ve done on the topic of abortion
Love is the Resistance - Want help with the culture wars and want to learn more about issues like poverty, evangelicals, why we fight, and what to do about it? You’ll love this book.
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Come say hello on this thread! I’m so glad you’re here. Hope you’ll kick your feet up and stay awhile.
Hebrews 4:15-16
The emotions I gently nursed while reading this was an act of healing. Thank you for reminding me that my experience wasn’t easy nor was it something I need to just get over. The medical debt from delivery, the hunt for affordable baby items, lack of health insurance. All of it. Thank you.
You are seriously one of my favorite writers. ❤️❤️❤️ This is a well.