In adolescence and early adulthood, I spent way too much time grousing with friends about what I saw as her shortcomings, but now decades past that period, I find myself amazed at all she did at each stage of my life: food on the table, nursing me during illnesses, helping with homework, and in general, encouraging me to learn and grow.
During my early-feminist days, the shortcomings I faulted her for were lack of assertiveness and failure to be a feminist role model. At the time, that meant she didn't teach me to go to demonstrations or build a life that was not economically dependent on a man. She did, however, encourage me to get an education--one with a practical side, such as a nursing or teaching degree. She valued education for itself and also as a backup in case one "had to work." Growing up in the 1950s, I knew that both of my parents were proud that my dad could support the family on his earnings in construction. My mother had been happy to retire from secretarial work and be a stay-at-home mom and homemaker. She had once wanted to be a nurse, but that dream didn't materialize. Whether she later regretted that, I don't know. I was more self-absorbed during the times I could have asked her.
Recently, I found myself wondering again about the gifts and problems inherited by children of activist mothers--the kind I once thought I wanted. During the past month or so I heard the children of two different moms--ones who put their commitment to social revolution ahead of or on a par with mothering. The two mothers were Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the National Farmworkers Union, and the late Carol Andreas, a woman I knew briefly in Denver in the 1980s. Their stories show there are no easy answers, and at the end of the day, we can see that each mother-child bond is different, that what might nourish one pair might harm another.
Huerta, who I remembered from the 1970s and 80s when my friends and I boycotted grapes and supported the struggles of frameworkers for a union contract, spoke at the Sie Film Center in early April. The occasion was opening night of a documentary about her life called Dolores. Huerta, who is 87 now, is still going strong. In addition to decades of work on behalf of farmworkers, she has been an activist in other important ways, especially in the women's movement. In 2012 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Pres. Obama. Today the Dolores Huerta Foundation works to strengthen community organizations in California.
Huerta has a vibrant demeanor, and I enjoyed hearing her Q &A. This stock photo captures her persona.In January--a day after Huerta joined one of the many women's marches held around the country in resistance to Trump's inauguration--she was interviewed by NPR. You can find that interview here. Scroll to the middle of the article, and you can read her reflections on mothering--her belief that her children turned out strong and resourceful, despite living with other families or being "dragged around the country with me." A few of her 11 children are quoted. One son talks about it his childhood being "tough"; another talks about scars; another talks about crying when she had to leave a loving foster home to rejoin her mother. Later, the film talks about a healing time--during the late 80s when Huerta was hospitalized following injuries inflicted by San Francisco police during a peaceful demonstration. The family came together and reinforced their bond.
In the interview, Huerta does not dwell on regrets: "And I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it. And so there are, of course, regrets that my children did have to make so many sacrifices, but at the end of the day, they turned out great."
It's likely that that Carol Andreas might say something similar. After her death, her youngest son Peter, discovered her diaries and used them to write the story of his childhood with his mother. The book is called Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution. Peter Andreas read from the book last week at Tattered Cover Bookstore, and just today, an essay about his mother appears in The New York Times Sunday Review. It's called "Thanks to Mom, the Marxist Revolutionary." It's quite concise, summarizing how his mother, radicalized by 60s social movements, kidnapped him and took him to South America after losing a custody battle with his father. Peter writes: "From ages 5 to 11, I traveled with my mother from Detroit to a Berkeley commune to a socialist collective farm in Chile to the coastal shantytowns of Peru. Fleeing marriage, coups and arrest warrants, my mother joined street protests and picket lines, and wrote passionately about the oppression of the poor and powerless. With me by her side, we battled the bad “isms” (imperialism, fascism, sexism and consumerism) and we fought for the good ones (communism, feminism and egalitarianism). When we secretly returned to the United States, we lived in hiding in Denver, where my mother changed her name so that my father could not find us."
Through all this, Peter yearned for stability, and in the end, did not choose his mother's revolutionary path. A political science professor and writer and a very engaging speaker, he talks about his choice
to be an academic and "policy Democrat" as one way for a child of a revolutionary to rebel. His path way to academia--a college education--was financed by his father, who had put aside the money for him. Peter's assessment of his mom today is a very nonjudgmental one. She may have done some "bad mothering" but was never a "bad mother". Why? Because she loved me, fought for me--even kidnapped me, he told us in the Q&A after his reading in Denver.
It was that last thought I took away with me, and which I would like to explore with Huerta's children if I could. That absolute conviction that we are loved and emotionally safe with our moms--that's the bedrock of it all, I believe. Yet, there is still each child's temperament and way of processing childhood. Had I been born to a mom like Carol Andreas, I think I would have withered and run back to my Dad. As a more risk-averse girl-child, I don't think I could have survived well--and because I was a girl, may have been exposed to more risks than a boy would have been. I imagine that among Huerta's children, there may be many differences in their memories and experiences of their childhoods.
And then again, there's the rebellion factor; my different choices in life could be rooted somewhat in that. Though my lovely mother was never an activist, she gave me the strength and confidence to become one. Thank you so much, Mom.
