In uncertain times, think like a mother | Yifat Susskind

111,600 views ・ 2020-05-01

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One morning, 18 years ago,
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I stepped out of a New York City subway on a beautiful day in September.
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The sun was warm and bright, the sky was a clear, perfect blue.
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I had my six-month-old son in one of those front-facing baby carriers,
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you know, so he could see everything.
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And when I turned right on Sixth Avenue,
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what he saw
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was the World Trade Center on fire.
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As soon as I realized that this was an attack,
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the first thing I did, without even really thinking about it,
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was to take my baby and turn him around in that carrier.
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I didn't want him to see what was going on.
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And I just remember feeling so grateful that he was still young enough
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that I didn't have to tell him that someone had done this on purpose.
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9/11 was like crossing a border,
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a hostile border into dangerous, uncharted territory.
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The world was suddenly in this terrifying new place,
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and I was in this place as a new mother.
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I remember my thoughts kind of ping-ponging around
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from, "How am I ever going to protect this baby?"
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to, "How am I ever going to get some sleep?"
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Well, my son turned 18 this year,
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along with millions of other people who were babies on 9/11.
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And in that time,
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we have all crossed into this hostile, uncharted territory
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of climate breakdown,
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of endless wars,
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of economic meltdowns,
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of deep political divisions,
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of the many crises around the world that I don't need to list off,
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because they are blaring at you every single day from your news feed.
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But there is something I've learned in these 18 years of parenting
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and in my years leading a global women's rights organization.
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There is a way to face these big crises in the world
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without feeling overwhelmed and despairing.
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It's simple, and it's powerful.
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It's to think like a mother.
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Now, to be clear, you don't have to be a woman
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or a parent to do this.
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Thinking like a mother is a lens that's available to everybody.
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The poet Alexis De Veaux writes,
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"Motherhood is not simply the organic process of giving birth.
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It's an understanding of the needs of the world."
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Now, it's easy to focus on all of the obstacles
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to making this the world we want:
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greed, inequality, violence.
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Yes, there is all of that.
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But there's also the option to plant a seed, a different seed,
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and cultivate what you want to see grow,
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even in the midst of crisis.
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Majid from Iraq understands this.
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He is a housepainter by trade
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and someone who believes deeply in equal rights for women.
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When ISIS invaded northern Iraq where he lives,
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he worked with a local women's organization
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to help build an underground railroad,
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an escape network for women's rights activists
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and LGBTIQ folks who were targeted with assassination.
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And when I asked Majid why he risked his own life
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to bring people to safety,
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he said to me,
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"If we want a brighter future,
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we have to build it now in the dark times
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so that one day we can live in the light."
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That's what social justice work is, and that's what mothers do.
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We act in the present with an idea of the future
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that we want to bring about.
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All of the best ideas seem impossible at first.
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But just in my lifetime,
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we've seen the end of apartheid,
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the affirmation that women's rights are human rights,
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marriage equality,
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the fall of dictators who ruled for decades
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and so much more.
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All of these things seemed impossible
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until people took action to make them happen,
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and then, like, almost right away,
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they seemed inevitable.
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When I was growing up,
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whether we were stuck in traffic or dealing with a family tragedy,
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my mother would say,
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"Something good is going to happen, we just don't know what it is yet."
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Now, I will admit that my brothers and I make fun of her for this,
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but people ask me all the time
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how I deal with the suffering that I see in my work
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in refugee camps and disaster zones,
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and I think of my mom and that seed of possibility
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that she planted in me.
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Because, when you believe that something good is coming
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and you're part of making it happen,
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you start to be able to see beyond the suffering
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to how things could be.
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Today, there is a new set of necessary ideas
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that seem impossible but one day will feel inevitable:
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that we could end violence against women,
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make war a thing of the past,
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learn to live in balance with nature before it's too late
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and make sure that everybody has what they need to thrive.
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Of course, being able to picture a future like this is not the same thing
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as knowing what to do to make it come about,
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but thinking like a mother can help with that, too.
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A few years ago,
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East Africa was gripped by a famine,
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and women I know from Somalia
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walked for days carrying their hungry children
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in search of food and water.
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A quarter of a million people died,
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and half of them were babies and toddlers.
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And while this catastrophe unfolded,
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too much of the world looked away.
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But a group of women farmers in Sudan,
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including Fatima Ahmed -- that's her holding the corn --
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heard about what was happening.
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And they pooled together the extra money that they had from their harvest
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and asked me to send it to those Somali mothers.
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Now, these farmers could have decided that they didn't have the power to act.
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They were barely getting by themselves,
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some of them.
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They lived without electricity, without furniture.
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But they overrode that.
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They did what mothers do:
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they saw themselves as the solution and they took action.
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You do it all the time if you have kids.
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You make major decisions about their health care,
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their education, their emotional well-being,
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even if you're not a doctor or a teacher or a therapist.
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You recognize what your child needs
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and you step up to provide it the best you can.
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Thinking like a mother means seeing the whole world
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through the eyes of those who are responsible
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for its most vulnerable people.
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And we're not used to thinking of subsistence farmers as philanthropists,
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but those women were practicing the root meaning of philanthropy:
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love for humanity.
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What's at the core of thinking like a mother shouldn't be a surprise:
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it's love.
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Because, love is more than just an emotion.
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It's a capacity, a verb,
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an endlessly renewable resource --
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and not just in our private lives.
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We recognize hate in the public sphere.
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Right? Hate speech, hate crimes.
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But not love.
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What is love in the public sphere?
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Well, Cornel West, who is not a mother but thinks like one,
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says it best:
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"Justice is what love looks like in public."
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And when we remember that every policy is an expression of social values,
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love stands out as that superstar value,
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the one best able to account for the most vulnerable among us.
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And when we position love as a kind of leading edge
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in policy making,
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we get new answers to fundamental social questions,
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like, "What's the economy for?"
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"What is our commitment to those in the path of the hurricane?"
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"How do we greet those arriving to our borders?"
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When you think like a mother,
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you prioritize the needs of the many,
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not the whims of the few.
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When you think like a mother,
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you don't build a seawall around beachfront property,
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because that would divert floodwaters
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to communities that are still exposed.
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When you think like a mother,
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you don't try to prosecute someone
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for leaving water for people crossing the desert.
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Because, you know --
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(Applause)
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Because you know that migration,
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just like mothering,
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is an act of hope.
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Now, not every mother thinks like a mother.
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When presented with a choice, some of us have made the wrong one,
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hiding behind weapons or barbed wire or privilege
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to deny the rest of the world,
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thinking they can see their way to safety in some kind of armed lifeboat
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fueled by racism and xenophobia.
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Not every mother is a role model,
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but all of us have a choice.
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Are we going to jump on that armed lifeboat
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or work together to build a mother ship that can carry everyone?
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You know how to build that mother ship,
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how to repair the world and ease the suffering.
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Think like a mother.
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Thinking like a mother is a tool we can all use
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to build the world we want.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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