mabfan | History, My Mom, and My Daughters

This picture is for you, Mom. I wish you were still alive to see it.

You died in 2007, before the historic elections of 2008, 2012, and now (I hope) 2016. You had no way of knowing what was going to come next.

I remember how you told me once what it was like for you as a little girl, growing up thinking Roosevelt was king, and what a shock it was for you and your friends when he died and you suddenly had to adjust to a new president for this country.

Your granddaughters were born in the first year of the first black president. All their lives, that is the president they have known. If all goes as I expect and hope it to, for the next eight years they will know a woman president. For almost their whole childhood they will not have known a white man as president. Given the 43 presidents this country had beforehand, I think that is a remarkable achievement.

Things are still not perfect or equal for women. But...

Your granddaughters are growing up in a world where they will be able to envision themselves realistically in so many more roles than you were allowed to. I remember your stories about fighting to go to Columbia Law School and about graduating in 1964 to find that law firms did not want to hire a woman.

Today, much of this country is posed to hire a woman as president.

And perhaps, one day, that might even include one of your granddaughters.