Before I had a kid, I was convinced that I could handle anything. I'd worked my way from community college to the University of Michigan to a job at Google to a career in television hosting. I was no stranger to late nights, weekly business travel, and the never-ending grind of building a career. It was all I knew for the entirety of my 20s. I'd been through successes and failures. I'd made immense sacrifices, and I became almost too good at functioning on three hours of sleep and lots of caffeine. No sleep or free time? Come on—I would have this motherhood thing in the bag. I had it all figured out.
After I exchanged enough information with the Uber driver to confirm that neither one of us was likely a serial killer, the spotless sedan was quickly filled with enough small talk to occupy the brief ride. "What do you do?" "I'm a writer." "Ah, what do you write?" At the time, I was deep in writing my debut non-fiction book, Raising the Resistance: A Mother's Guide to Practical Activism, and had been busy typing away about feminism, reproductive justice, antiracism, and other topics that don't normally come up during a short Uber ride with a stranger but had consumed my work and much of my life. "I'm writing a book," I responded. "Oh! About what?" "Motherhood and political activism."
As the new decade dawned, I sat at my computer for an entire day, attempting to make good on a promise to my child. "Attempt" is the right word, because it was surprisingly difficult to purge my social media of posts involving her. Even after five passes, Instagram mysteriously unearthed additional photos, trapping me in a seemingly unwinnable game of Whack-A-Mole. You can bring your child into the digital world, but it isn't so easy to take them out.
I am a first-generation Mexican-American daughter of immigrants. Both of my parents were born in Mexico and eventually naturalized in Texas. I have been the first to hit many milestones in my family and life. I was the first to go to college, I was the first to go to grad school, I was the first in my family to enter the world of finance, I was even one of the first Latinas in my group at a Wall Street bank.
My top strength is "discipline," which means when my family's schedules were thrown into upheaval during quarantine, I immediately got to work organizing my daughters' maze of online school schedules and modifying my own schedule to keep as much order as possible.
"Sh*t!" my daughter exclaimed as she dropped her iPad to the floor. A little bit of context; my daughter Victoria absolutely loves her iPad. And as I watched her bemoan the possible destruction of her favorite device, I thought to myself, "If I were in her position, I'd probably say the exact same thing."
I close my computer screen, but the headlines remain etched in my mind like the voices of my father and mother when they told me I had to follow their beliefs, or I would not be saved when the fire rained down from heaven When I let in the onslaught of social media and voices of worried friends and neighbors, it brings me back to a frightening time. A time when I grew up with a looming dread of Armageddon. Listening to how people talk about the pandemic has triggered these memories.
I want to celebrate all the moms in my life, but I have spent years on mother's day exhausted going from one place to the next with the hopes of getting home in time to maybe celebrate me. It's a challenge for me to balance it all in one day — even on a day, that's supposed to be about celebrating me. But this year is going to be different, in more ways than one.
It is terrifying when you do not have all the answers, especially when you are a parent and your children are looking to you for safety. We are living in a very chaotic time due to the fear of the unknown while a feeling of powerlessness and despair creeps over us. Some of us have many questions while others are not sure what to ask or what to do during this difficult period. The issue is that human beings seek comfort and once they receive that comfort, they either experience life lessons, are destined to repeat patterns until they learn from the lesson, or never understand the lesson at all.
Being a mom is so rewarding. Being a working mom is double rewarding. I have the opportunity to flex my mental muscles when I'm among my colleagues and when I return home, I spend one-on-one time with my daughter. I teach her the importance of a balanced life and normalize the behavior of a successful working mom. Though, I couldn't do it without my tribe, the women and men who support me and my little nugget as I navigate this unknown territory.