Beloved Daughter,
You will be 3 years old tomorrow. I behold you in all your wonder: you are climbing the monkey bars with the confidence of a lifelong mountaineer, and I think back to your first fumbling steps. You can speak to me in Spanish and English and I think back to when you communicated your earliest needs in Sign Language. One of your first signs was “owl”, your favorite animal and the totem that blessed you before your birth. The spirit of Owl watches over you from the dream catcher I wove and all our friends decorated with beads and prayers at your baby blessing. Memories flood my mind and I wish I could express with words how profoundly being your mother has transformed me. I am without a doubt a better human because you are in my life.
You fall and scrape your knee. Running into my embrace, wailing, you ask me to kiss it better, and I do: “Sana, sana, colita de rana, si no sana hoy, sanará mañana.” I use the eternal Mexican incantation for these kinds of things: “heal, heal, little frog´s butt, if it doesn´t heal today, it will heal tomorrow.”
If only that were enough to assuage my own anxieties. I hold you tight and smell your hair: sunshine, milk and lavender. As I hold you I know that thousands of children wither without their parents’ embrace in concentration camps along the border that divides your two countries. You were born on the same year this cruel presidency began. You were 4 months old when your uncle Raksmei, whose family barely survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, came to visit. The day of the election he and I walked you in your stroller along the pier and for the first time ever or since, we saw a whale!
I was incredulous when the election results came in, but uncle Raksmei was devastated. A sexist, racist, homophobic man had acquired the keys to power, and members of Raksmei and your father’s family had voted for him. It felt like a betrayal.
I have heard many people say 2016 was the worst year of their lives because that man became president. But how can I agree, when 2016 was the year you were born and made me a mother?
Now here we are three years later. You are a brilliant, radiant, loving, happy, healthy child, and that man continues to wreak havoc on this nation and the world. Of course we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing he alone is the problem. Colonial industrial capitalist civilization has been oppressing people, destroying nature and driving us to the brink of extinction for a few hundred years, but now the edge of the cliff is within view. It is a terrifying time to be the parent of a young child.
I am writing because your father and I promised to write you a letter on every one of your birthdays. Like a time capsule, we will give them to you when you are old enough to read and comprehend them. Because we are older than most parents, we want you to have these letters far into the future, assuming there is a future, and even after we are gone, hoping we can have a long life and see you grow, so you can always remember how much we love you.
I am also writing to make a confession: I feel guilty about not throwing you a proper party. I have some excuses: most of your friends are out of town, our family has been through a lot in the past 6 months, I am exhausted, and the inhumane treatment of immigrant children at the border puts a bitter edge on everything.
A party like the one we had last year would be nice: families of friends with children your age came over. I cooked a big meal and an apple cake on which I drew an owl. Kids played outside with water and tricycles, and inside with the play dough I made at home with essential oils. We didn´t give any party favors—I didn´t know we were supposed to—but in any case I was determined not to buy plastic decorations and dollar store knickknacks that end up in the landfills. We washed every plastic spoon and cup for reuse in other parties (we have a bunch in our pantry that have been reused multiple times). All the gifts you got were books, really enlightened ones. I still have the gift bags and paper they came in, saved for reuse.
My ambivalence about parties, favors and gifts reflects a deeper ambivalence I have with consumerist societal expectations. I no longer want to celebrate birthdays and holidays in ways that produce lots of trash.
You are young enough that you won't miss having a party. You really enjoyed some celebratory activities with me and your dad today, and tomorrow we will bring cupcakes to your preschool and have a little celebration there with birthday songs in your two languages, a candle to make a wish and blow out, and sharing a treat with your classmates and teachers.
But as you grow older, you will start to notice. I don't want to come across like a miser or a Grinch, but sometimes I will, because I care more about saving this planet than about saving face with people who are still in the thrall of the materialist American Dream. What I want you to know, dear Sophia, is that just because we don't throw you a big party to celebrate your birth, doesn't mean we love you any less. In fact, we love you more, because the greatest gifts we give you again and again, are the ones that have the potential to save humanity from destruction and nature from near-death.
Most parents want to give their children what they never had, but they think about it in terms of material things. I know a woman who wants to buy her 8-year-old designer jeans to save her from getting bullied. She’s going about it all wrong. I want to build a world where you will never be bullied because our community relationships will be built on love and justice. I also want to build a world for you where the forces that create life are stronger than those that destroy it.
This is why we may never take you to Disneyland, but every weekend we take you to the farm where you greet the ducks and the bees, you eat clusters of blue borage flowers and so many organic strawberries that the juice runs down your face in rivulets of pink.
We may not throw big birthday parties for you with movie-hero themes and shiny plastic party favors, but we involve you in baking and decorating your own birthday cake to share with beloved friends.
We do not shower you with new presents, but our network of people who give us well-loved hand-me-downs has you supplied with clothes, stimulating educational toys, books, art and building materials. You never run out of interesting things to do.
So you see, my beloved daughter, your father and I can give you all this because we have some privilege. We are fortunate in ways we did not earn, and we do not take our great luck for granted. We believe it is our responsibility to use our power and resources to benefit others and the Earth, so we volunteer our time, march for human rights, and give some of our money to good causes.
(Photo caption: Sophia, Dan and I at the first Keep Families Together Rally)
Your father and I choose to trade some short-term privileges that could give us more pleasure, for longer-term benefits that create more health and joy and build the kinder world we want for you. Less vacations, but more healthy food all year long. Less things, but more time together. Less isolation and more community.
The best gift we offer you, my darling, is to love you so much, that we work to make a better world for you.
Happy birthday, my love, may the Earth flourish, and you with it,
Your mother who loves you,
Magali
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