PISR Moms

During the spring of my senior year of college I was on a panel. I can't recall the nature of the panel exactly, just that I was in front of twenty or thirty people and I was supposed to be a representative of social justice groups on campus. My friend and co-leader, Rachel, was on the panel too. As was the chaplain of my small Lutheran college.

On the day of the panel in question, I was wearing a tye-dyed sheet that my then-boyfriend had sewed into a haphazard dress. I spoke passionately (though probably not eloquently) about living simply, about buying organic, about closing the School for the Americas. Rachel ticked off on her fingers the things our group, PISR (People Instigating Social Reform), had accomplished that year, accomplishments that now I can't even remember. Free trade coffee in the cafeteria? Sweatshop-free T-shirts in the Bookstore? Two hundred signatures on a petition banning landmines?

Then the chaplain (two years away from retirement and considerably ornery) stood up and proclaimed that in 10 years we'd both be driving SUVs and living in the suburbs. We were idealistic now, he claimed, but at heart we were just upper middle class white girls. We would return to our natural habits and habitat soon enough.

We, of course, were outraged. Indignant. What did he know, after all, about who we WERE???

And now, it is ten years later. Today, Rachel and Jessica (another friend from the PISR movement) came over to my Northfield town home. Jessica lives in a suburb of Denver and Rachel lives in Bloomington. They carpooled down in Jessica's mother's Lexus, Lu and Adelaide (two and one, respectively) chattering in the back seat.

We ate Christmas cookies and Brie. We drank coffee with too much cream and sugar. We talked and while we talked we took care of our girls. We changed poopy diapers and retrieved markers from Zip-lock bags; we mopped up drool and cleaned up puddles of yogurt; we turned our gazes toward the ceiling and listened for chortles and kicks and squeals. And we talked about the things we talk about now: sleep schedules, communicating with husbands, sex, lack of sex, cloth diapers vs. disposable, failure to thrive, failure to introduce solid foods at the right time, winter boots, Baby Gap, daycare, and how parenting never ends.

I love these women. Now more than ever.

As I washed the dishes and licked leftover frosting off a plate, I thought about the chaplain's prediction ten years ago. To a certain extent, he was right. Our house is covered with baby stuff that we don't truly need (swing, chair, Bumbo seat, play mat, highchair, Pack N Play, etc. etc.) and yesterday I spent $140 on a pair of boots that I could have done without. I don't always buy organic and I often drive the 15 minute walk to work. I don't remember the last time I sent a letter to a congressperson or attended a rally in support of a cause. I certainly haven't been arrested lately.

And yet. Jessica is in medical school. Rach is a stay-at-home mom in the process of adopting orphans from Uganda. I am a part time professor and part time writer. We all have daughters whom we adore. We are all still living through and in our passions. Sometimes growing bored, sometimes spending too much money on footwear, but still asking questions, still thinking, still reading.

So have we sold out? Maybe a little. But I prefer to think that we've "bought in" to a different kind of life. And we are trying to live this new life with the same kind of passion and integrity as those co-eds who sang protest songs and fasted for justice so many years ago.