Raise Them Higher

Anna Whitehouse - 23 Nov 16

Dear Mae,

It’s 8.03am on 9 November 2016.

You are loved. By parents and grandparents who believe in equality, by an Aunty who is marrying an incredible woman next year, a Godfather, who is marrying his boyfriend of six years and your best friend Zion whose parents are from Jamaica and whose passport says ‘British’.

You are loved by people.

So I don’t want the events of 2016 to impact how you see people.

I still want you to have hope that the appointment to US president of a man who so openly despises women will not impact how you see the world; how you live in this world; how you treat people.

As a family, we will strive to show you that when Hillary Clinton, speaking about her possible female presidency, said, “One of you is next”, she was directing that at you.

While you can’t officially be US president, you are going to shatter those glass ceilings not with a hammer, but with a bulldozer. Wearing trousers – or an on-trend sequined pencil skirt – whatever you fancy. You are going to live in a world where men and women are paid the same for doing the same job; a world where ‘sexism’ is abandoned to the dusty, historical archives.

My belief in democracy and a basic – almost toddler-level – understanding of right and wrong might have been obliterated with our departure from the EU in June, but I didn’t allow you to see my tears when three men in Manchester spat racist abuse at an African man because they ‘wanted their country back’. When MP Jo Cox was murdered among this upheaval, I didn’t allow you to see my mourning for a woman whose sense and reason shone through in so much guff and lies.

I believe in hope. I believe in the 60 million people who voted against Trump. I believe in the 16,141,241 who voted Remain. I believe that while your future has been decided on an infantile belief in ‘greatness’ at the great cost of inclusion, diversity, equality and the economy, I believe in your generation.

Because, like your favourite character (Mr Potato Head: not Woody or Buzz) you are the good guy. The good guys will make the world a better place.

And when you told me last week that you wanted to marry a girl ‘like Aunty Daz’ and this morning that Trump was a ‘stinky poo’ (after hearing me say far worse), I knew that you were the girl for the job.

Here’s to the future. It’s yours for the taking.

Your mother, Anna

Anna Whitehouse

I’m a copywriter, mother and founder of Mother Pukka (a website ‘for people who happen to be parents’). Likes: super hero cape-making classes. Dislikes: merged celebrity names i.e. TomKat, Bennifer, Brange etc.

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