I often talk about my family here. Going to do that again.
For years here people thought I was a women. Why, maybe cause I come out hard for women causes. Maybe I have something of a famine voice. Well that is all cause of my mom. My mom is a "rock star." In my family, and you can count us all on one hand, there is my myself, my dad, and my brother. We call mom the "little general."
When she gets an idea in her head she looks at the situation strategically. Then advances. God forbid you are between her and her stated objective. Either you are with her or you are against her. If you are against her she will bum rush you. The "little general."
It is at this point I should note my mother is a moderate Republican. She is pissed.
My mother is an election judge. After every election she calls me to vent. She is always livid, cause well nobody seems to vote. That pains her. It pains me. She doesn't have a lot of sympathy for people that bitch and don't do anything to change things. And if you want to change something, then fucking vote.
I often wonder how I came from a family of Republicans and became a hippie, far left liberal. I think it is cause of two things: (1) my parents never forced their views down my throat and (2) I was pushed, heck forced to entertain a lot of different ideas. Aristotle once said:
It is the sign of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea and not accept it.
Since I reconnected with my mother a few years ago I've been asking her to entertain a lot of new ideas. My mom didn't force her views down my throat when I was a kid, so I don't do that to her. Even when I think she is wrong I don't tell her that. I just ask, at times beg her to listen to my point-of-view.
The first place I started here was tolerance of others. My mother isn't racist or a bigot, but she has a pretty strict worldview. You should do things this way or that way. If you don't you are wrong. It took sometime but I got her to understand if you dress different, if you like the same sex, if you do things different than how she would, well that isn't a bad thing.
The next place, and this is still a work in progress, is getting her to understand how she lives her daily life is as a liberal. I wrote a few Diaries here noting that about a decade ago my mom and dad inherited more money than they can spend in a lifetime. Tens of millions.
My mother always gave of her time at the local hospital, at a women's rape crisis center. Tons of things. I told her to start writing some checks. She said she wanted to leave me as much money as possible. I told her I was fine, don't worry about me. If she saw something she thought was wrong she had maybe the power, or at least the checking account, to change that.
And this brings me, in a long-winded way to talk about the "war on women."
As I said my mom is a "rock star." She worked 24/7 to support my father when he was getting his PhD. College educated. Top of her class. But my mother was of a generation when you have a kid (that would be me) the women stays at home and raises them. You might be able to argue my mother would have had an easier time running the United States than raising me :).
In 2008 my mother for the first time in her 63 years voted for Obama. She wasn't so much a fan of Obama. She just, and I quote her:
Palin is shit all stupid.
My mother cusses like once a decade and that is a direct quote. She was embarrassed, said Palin was an affront to strong and smart women everywhere. She couldn't, wouldn't vote for a ticket she was on.
This is still a secret in my house. My dad would freak. Well not really, but kind of.
This year she is totally behind Obama.
The reason is simple, she doesn't want anybody, much less men, telling her what she should do with her body. I can't think my mom is alone here.