Politics and Our Better Angels

Here I am at the State Convention. 

The other day the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Russell M. Nelson, met with NAACP president Derrick Johnson, and together they called on the world to “demonstrate greater civility, racial and ethnic harmony, and mutual respect” while eliminating “prejudice of all kinds.”

This call for civility was particularly powerful to me, because the same news cycle reported on a singular lack of civility within the Utah Republican Party. Signatures to get an important issue on the Primary ballot were evidently “lost” in the county clerk’s office before being counted.

Such shenanigans have come about as certain factions feel that their side is right, and because they are right anything is justified in order to win.

I saw this first hand as I served as a delegate to the Utah Republican Conventions, both at the county and state level. I was elected to this position one evening at the local school gym. My mandate was to represent my neighbors by thoroughly researching all the candidates running for office and then voting for the ones to represent the party on the November ballot. Accordingly, I reviewed websites, attended meet and greets, listened to debates, and talked personally to candidates on the phone. I made a spread sheet of all the candidates and compared their positions and qualifications. I came to the conventions ready to cast my vote for the candidates I felt were most qualified.

At the conventions, though, I found a rancor that did not fit with this simple mandate I felt. I heard people say, “I won’t vote for that candidate because he doesn’t support the caucus system.” Or “Sure, he’s a good man, but he’s just a RINO—Republican in Name Only.” Or "He can't represent our state, he not really a Utahn." Some people seemed to judge the candidates by the “side” they perceived them to be on rather than their qualifications for office.

At the state convention, 4,000 delegates gathered, some driving for hours from distant parts of the state. We were all ready to vote for the two offices before us: US senator and US congress (for various districts). Then we spent over two hours arguing over rules for the state party. The infighting among the leadership was vitriolic and clearly those in power feared a coups. Thousands of ordinary delegates did not understand the fuss, but we were subjected to their anger and name-calling nonetheless. 

Then there were problems with the voting clickers. And endless talks by candidates who would end up getting fewer than 10 votes. 

We didn’t finish the voting until after 7 pm, by which time many of the delegates had left, so the voting was not representative. The very purpose of the convention had been derailed by factionalism.

We can’t choose the best candidates if we are so caught up in factionalism that we don’t vet the candidates according to their fitness to serve. 

Orin Hatch, who has served as US Senator for over 40 years, put it this way in a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal:

I am more than the sum of my parts, and so is every American. Yet increasingly we sort each other into groups, making sweeping assumptions based on binary labels: Democrat or Republican, black or white, male or female. . . . Our tendency to use labels to box each other in is indicative of a much larger societal problem: the unleashing of identity politics. . . . If we allow [identity politics ]to metastasize, civility will cease, our national community will crumble , and the US will become a divided country of ideological ghettos. 

Ideas—not identity—should be the driving force of our politics. By restoring the primacy of ideas to public discourse, we can foster an environment that will allow democracy to thrive.

I’m glad I served as a Utah Republican Caucus Delegate. I’m glad I was able to learn about the candidates and cast an informed vote. 

But I am disgusted by the increasingly divisive nature of politics today—the anger between parties and within parties, between conservatives and liberals and between conservatives and ultra-conservatives.

Here is what I am going to do about it. 

Following the guidelines of the group Better Angels, my friend and I are going to host a group in which both sides of the political spectrum are equally represented. We will talk and we will listen and we will find ways we can work together to solve common problems. 

But more than that, every day I am going to listen to others. I am going to look for unbiased news sources, and lacking that, I will listen to all sides of the news so I can make my own decisions. I am going to check facts before I am outraged by them. I  am going to show respect for others. I am going to look for areas of agreement. I am going to try to find solutions rather than highlight problems.  I am going to try, as Abraham Lincoln urged in his first Inaugural Address, to be influenced by the “better angels of my nature.”

Mothers, The Country Bunny, and the Hardest Job Training Seminar I Know

Once in my job-life, I needed to pull together several professors of differing opinions to work together on a project. A colleague who was aware of my efforts calling and meeting and cajoling, asked, “How do you know how to do this?” 

Surprised by the question, I considered. “Well,” I responded, “it’s not all that different from putting together the carpool schedule each year.”

Though I didn’t often make the connection, my work as a mom in many ways prepared me for my work I was paid for.

Which brings me to one of my favorite Easter books. In The Country Bunny and the Golden Shoes (published in 1939) “a little country girl bunny with brown skin” aspires to be an Easter Bunny. In the story there are five Easter Bunnies, who must be “the kindest, the swiftest, and the wisest” of all the bunnies. When this little Cottontail tells of her dream, the rich white bunnies and the tall boy brown bunnies all laugh and tell her to “go back to the country and eat a carrot.” (Yes, in this picture book from the '30s, both racism and sexism are the foes of the little brown girl bunny.)

She is not deterred by prejudice, however, and simply says, “Wait and see!”

But something does seem to slow her down. “By and by she had a husband, and then one day, much to her surprise, there were twenty-one Cottontail babies to take care of.” Her detractors really laughed now: “Take care of [the babies] and leave Easter eggs to great big men bunnies like us.” Then, “they went away liking themselves very much.”

So Cottontail settles down to raising her twenty-one little ones. Now, the story skips over a lot of work here. That husband seems to be absent (maybe he was killed by Farmer MacGregor? Maybe he just hopped off to find greener grass?), and Cottontail is caring for those bunny babies as a single mom. 

Now remember, the Easter bunnies are chosen because they are kind, wise, and swift. Any mother know that Ms. Cottontail learns to be kind as she gets up in the night to feed her babies, as she rocks them to sleep even though she hasn’t slept herself in what seems like days, as she listens to their problems without (very often) complaining about her own. 

She learns to be swift as she runs from one emergency to another, as she hustles to cook meals and wash clothes and clean the house before the next meals need to be cooked and more clothes need washing and the house is a disaster again. 

She learns to be wise sorting out squabbles, managing limited funds and time, and learning what priorities to prioritize.

I can fill in the blanks, as can many of you, because of my own experience as a mom. I may not be the kindest or the wisest, and certainly not the swiftest, but I know I am a better person today,  because I have been a mother, trying my hardest to do what is best for my own little brood.

Holly Tree Richardson, a modern Ms. Cottontail, the mother of 25 (4 delivered the usual way; 21 adopted), explains this metamorphosis:

Being a mother has unquestionably shaped me into the woman I am today. Strong-willed and vocal? I learned that advocating for my children. . . compassion? Empathy? Speaking up for the underdog? Learning to drive a bus or octuple recipes? Efficiency and working as a team? Loving unconditionally? A multi-tasking ninja? A strong work ethic? All traits and attributes I have developed because I first became a mother. ("Mother's Can Relate to the Heart-Driven Life," Salt Lake Tribune, April 28, 2018)

But neither Ms. Cottontail nor Holly Richardson stopped at using her talents to serve her family.

Out little Cottontail mother knew that her babies wouldn’t and shouldn’t be babies forever, so as soon as they were old enough, she taught them the work of being adults. She says, “Now we are going to have some fun,” and two by two, she teaches all the bunnies important adult work: cleaning, cooking, washing, sewing, gardening, art, music, and literature. 

Here again, the book skips over the hard work of training the little ones: the patience when they burned the food and stained the clothes or ruined the floor by using the wrong cleaner, the chaos when they squabbled over why Flopsy got to paint pictures while Mopsy had to clean the toilet, the disappointment when they went off to gather daisies instead of mending the torn trousers. But somehow, in a feat of incredible management skill, Mother Cottontail does train her twenty-one children, and the bunnies not only learn to do the work well, but also to work as a team and to enjoy it. 

Then, her household running smoothly, her children well taught, Cottontail learns that there is a vacancy in the Easter Bunny profession. She gathers her family to go watch the job interviews, a little sad, thinking “now she was nothing but an old mother bunny and could only look on.” 

However, after watching all the big white rabbits and long-legged brown Jack rabbits show off their strength and speed, the big boss, Grandfather Rabbit (who has obviously learned a thing or two through parenting as well) notices our little brown Mother Cottontail. 

In the job interview, he asks about her parenting, recognizing how wise and kind she must be to have raised such a large family of good bunnies. All she must do is demonstrate her speed with a quick game of tag with the children, and the job is hers. Our little brown country girl bunny reaches her lifelong dream, but not the way she thought she would. Surprisingly, the mommy-track leads to the pinnacle of bunnydom, becoming the Easter Bunny.

Similarly, our modern Mother Cottontail, Holly Tree Richardson, became a political activist, and served in the Utah state legislature. She is now a columnist for a major newspaper, an active blogger, and works with a non-profit helping Rohinga refugees.

In my own dual career (mother and teacher), I started out teaching only one class a semester when my own bunnies were little, but as they grew I added more, and when they were grown, I worked full time administering a major writing program. In my work, I used the skills I had honed as a mother, including patience, grit, and laughter.

Though The Country Bunny is an Easter book, it’s really about mothers. I was not surprised to learn that, though the book was written by a man, the story is based on a tale told by Dubose’s mother. His mother knew, as all good mothers do, that moms are great not only because they help their children grow, but also because they grow as they help their children. Mothers are always learning as they are mothering, and because mothering is both hard and important, the skills they learn are some of the most important skills in the world.

And mothers, as they share those skills beyond their homes, will make the world better.

So happy Mother’s Day! Thanks, moms, for all you do for others. 

But also, remember you are enrolled in one of the most intensive job training seminars on earth. Kudos on all you are learning!