The TLFWTSCEVATPITM* and Women's Suffrage

Alice Paul and the National Women's Party August 18, 1920

Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on June 4, 1919, guaranteeing all women the right to vote. My proposal for today is that instead of spending one split second of time talking or even thinking about the *Too-large Family with the Strident Christian Evangelical Views and Tortured Pedophiles in Their Midst or even wondering why the TLFWTSCEVATPITM is and has been interesting at all in these United States, we reflect upon the enormous legacy a generation or two of extremely bad-ass women bestowed on us. As my friend, the writer Lidia Yuknavitch said today,

hey you mammals that think your rights just appeared from the old man wizard in the sky or thin air: wake up and read history. you're standing on some bones that mattered.

Check these women out:

Lucretia Mott

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Susan B. Anthony

Carrie Chapman Chatt

Lucy Burns

Dora Lewis

Alice Paul

Pauline Adams

Helena Hill Weed

Julia Ward Howe

Anticipate this:

Rogue Wave Parenting

All this talk of the mommy wars (I shudder even typing it!) makes me raise my eyebrows and smirk, so when I saw this video on Facebook of a guy surfing what was dubbed THE BIGGEST WAVE EVER SURFED, I couldn't help but compare it to extreme parenting -- the parenting that those of us with chronically ill and disabled children do every moment, every day, every year. 

Here's to all of you -- mothers and fathers, guardians and caregivers, surfers of the big waves and amazing riders.

It felt kinda big...it felt like a ton of bricks..but it was teeny little whitewater... The waves were not supposed to be that big that day... but because they're rogue waves.. As I rode this wave, it seemed pretty massive, but I couldn't really tell how big it was...when I got to the bottom and turned, and got around the wave and went to kick out, it landed on me, it felt like a ton of bricks...probably the most powerful one to land on me at the shoulder.

...and it was pretty amazing.