My Mom Is Brave. All Moms Are Brave.

My Mom left her home in rural western Pennsylvania after high school. She went to State College, Pennsylvania not for college but to work and better her life. She worked in a department store selling cosmetics and lingerie. This was the 1960s when she was expected to stay in the community she grew up in, marry, and raise kids. My Mom is brave.

She eventually met my Dad, fell in love, converted to Judaism, married him and had me. They moved to Harrisburg where I was born and then suburban Philadelphia where I grew up. She was far away from her family, young, and in a world that was changing rapidly. My Mom is brave.

When I was 12 my mom decided to work outside the home. Many of my friends’ moms and many suburban women across our country were going to work outside the home. But there was a huge amount of sexism, inequality, harassment, and resentment in the male dominated workplace. My mom is brave.

When I was 16, looking at colleges, my Mom decided she wanted to go to school. First part time but eventually full-time. She made friends who were my age. She was a great student. She discovered she loved accounting. She graduated when I was a junior in college and went on to have a successful accounting career. My mom is brave.

In 2017 at the Women’s March as our group walked from RFK stadium into DC I heard my mom say to a women around her age whom she had just met, “I can’t believe we are doing this again!” My mom is brave.

The woman to whom she was speaking is brave. All the women that day and who continue to persist and resist and show to do the work of advocating and activism and democracy are brave.

I could write a variation of this about my Mom-Mom, my Grandmother, my aunts, cousins, friends, acquaintances. They are all brave.

I could write a variation of this about all essential workers and volunteers doing mutual aid. They are all brave.

I could write a variation of this about the women who went ahead of me and big or small ways laid an easier path for me and all of us. I am not a mom. I have that choice because so many brave women ahead of me fought for me to have that choice. They are all brave.

A mom is someone who fights with great determination, care, concern, and love for a safe, secure, better life for themselves and their family. Moms are brave.