What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel?: Mr. Rogers' Goes to Washington

"What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

That was the name of a song from one of my favorite Children's Public Television shows called Mr. Roger's Neighborhood when I was a kid. Fred Rogers wrote it after a child asked him those very words. It was a song meant to help all us kids re-direct angry instincts to act out negatively and find constructive ways to channel our anger instead. 

As a volunteer lobbyist, I'm often in the position of going into an office of a senator or representative to talk about policies and systems that make me really mad. Sometimes, it's something the member of Congress has said or done publicly that makes me angry and I have to figure out how to get in touch with that inner outrage, but channel it in a way that will lead to a positive outcome. At the same time, we everyday folks have to worry about those nagging insecure feelings of "What if I don't sound professional?" or "What if I can't think of the right words?" 

Well, once upon a time back in 1969, there was was a day when Mister Rogers, beloved icon of children's television, showed everyone the very best way to lobby and take action with the mad that he felt. PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was then (as it is periodically even now) under attack for defunding. Fred Rogers spoke in a senate committee hearing to support public television in response to a steep 50% cut proposed by President Nixon. I assume assume that very few people saw his testimony since congressional hearings were hardly ever televised. But now, through the magic of YouTube, we can see what happened that day.

Like the very best volunteer lobbyists, Mr. Rogers took time away from his work and family to speak from the heart on an issue he felt strongly about. He wasn't slick or clever. He didn't use a lot of technical educational terms. He put aside formal remarks and he told a story. He took his time, speaking slowly and with care to a senator who was - in my opinion - being rather snarky and unfriendly to him. He spoke just the way he spoke to all of us toddlers every day when we sat around the TV waiting for him to feed his fish and change his shoes. (Incidentally, I think that is also a great testimony to the fact that he spoke to children with great respect and without being condescending...another lesson we parents should learn)

He said these words in a congressional hearing to let senators know that every single day he told us kids something to affirm our self-worth: "You made today a special day by just your being you. There is no person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are." Words so powerful it made me cry just to hear them again in the video as a 43 year old mom. He melted the heart of that senator and earned the full $20 Million dollars for public television just like that. 

Mr. Rogers passed away in 2003, but his legacy of a solid emotional foundation in millions of children is still evident in grown-ups like me. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. For teaching me this one last lesson.

Looking Back at my RESULTS Conferences

Photo Credit: RESULTS Educational Fund

Greetings from the RESULTS International Conference in sunny (for now) Washington D.C.! We are celebrating the 35th Anniversary of this stellar organization, which has played such a pivotal role in the steady march to end poverty. We've been sharing a lot of memories and retrospectives here at the conference and it made me want to post a few of my own memories here on my Anti-Poverty Mom blog. Makes sense because this is the organization that MADE me the Anti-Poverty Mom. 

Getting our pic with my Senator Obama's foreign policy
aide at my 1st RESULTS conference

2008: The year I took a leap of faith. 
I wanted to learn to lobby in person and heard from people in the know that RESULTS teaches face-to-face lobbying better than any other organization. Wow. That's huge considering the people that told me also belonged to other advocacy organizations. So, I left my babies with my husband and went all by myself to the RESULTS International Conference where I knew exactly ZERO people. During that week, I met people I now call dearest friends and role models. I lobbied my senator's office never knowing that Senator Obama would soon become President Obama.

Standing with lobbying giants Sarah Beardmore and RESULTS
legend Bob Dickerson

2009: The year of the green suit. 
(Who wears a green suit?) By this time, I had been bitten by the lobbying bug hard and was on my way to becoming a regularly published letter-to-the-editor writer. I loved RESULTS so much, I ran for the national board by making a speech in front of the whole conference...and won! Wait, what?! Yep, I became the Evanston group leader and a board member the same year. With pre-schoolers. See what a good green suit can do for you?

A photo op with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois

2010: The year I met Senator Dick Durbin. 
By this time, my U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky knew my name and even mentioned me in a speech. More importantly, I'm feeling super empowered because I walked into their offices, asked them to do things, and they said "Yes!" You're looking at a mommy drunk with power!!! Fortunately, when I came home, my kids wasted no time dumping food on the floor, which I had to clean. Humility restored. 

2011: The year of the D.C. family vacation.
By this time, my family was wondering what the heck I do with myself at the RESULTS International Conference of mystery. The girls were still too little to come with me, but we decided they are old enough to enjoy some museums and, I guess, an open-bar reception in the Capitol. I greeted them with "Future Member of Congress" T-shirts and we ushered them in to meet all my friends, colleagues, and celebrity activist Valerie Harper. Then, later, even after the conference was over, we had a double senator meeting at the IL constituent breakfast with senators Durbin and Kirk. Um...yes...somtimes our family lobbies on vacation on our free time. We're a bundle of fun!

Pre-Lobby Day shenanigans at a podium

2012: The year I was elected to Senate.
No, no. Just kidding. But I did quit my board term early and start working as RESULTS staff part-time on the fundraising team. I got paid for talking on the phone and emailing the most wonderful people every day! I loved being so involved with our volunteer activists and getting to know the staff I admired so much as friends and colleagues. I no longer had any free time and learned that everyone who works at a non-profit does about 30% more things that I thought they did.

My daughter & I become a DC lobbying team

2013: Take your daughter to work year.
Finally deciding my oldest daughter had enough patience to sit through conference sessions (even if she reads books while we meet), I brought her out to DC with me. After all, she'd already attended more in-district lobby meetings than most adults by this point in her short life. Turned out she was great at filing things and sorting nametages, so "take your daughter to work day" became "put your daughter to work" day as well.

Bringing the little sister to join the team

2014: The year BOTH daughters attended.
By this time, I had decided to leave my part-time job because of my decision to become a writer. Yet it was far from a slow paced conference. That year I brought both girls, ran for board again (and won), met the president of the World Bank Dr. Jim Kim for the price of writing a thoughtful blog piece about his speech, coached a team full of brand new poverty advocates on my team, and even helped acclimate movie star Sean Astin to our happy family traditions. Honestly, I'm kind of tired even thinking of last year!

2015: ??????

What will this year hold? I don't know, but I'm here with my two seasoned lobbyist kids and heading to offices who darn well know who we are now. All I can say, is that I'm excited for the future days and future years with all my RESULTS family.


And now, here's a retrospective of my dear friendship with Jen Paprotna who has now left the RESULTS staff for another organization. Here are all our pictures together in one place from Lobby Days past. (Honestly, 2012 was a rough year on that open bar.) Enjoy, Jen!

2009

2012

2013

2014

Sadness is an Underrated Emotion

Image by Cynthia Changyit Levin

When was the last time you had a really good cry? Did you tell people about it? Did you take a selfie your sad face? Of course not. In our happy-driven society (#100DaysOfHappiness, anyone?), can we create a useful space for sadness? Can being sad actually help our ability to shape our world? I think "yes," if we allow ourselves to listen to our sadness. 

The negative emotion of sadness is an feeling which - carefully cultivated - can lead us to postive, powerful actions. Like anger, a common catalyst for social change and justice, it's quieter cousin is often at the beginning of our awareness that change is needed. If we're not dwelling endlessly in it, sadness can motivate us to rectify a bad situation. We know we don't want to feel that way. We don't want other people to feel that way. So...we do something about it. We pick up the baby who cries. We comfort those who are hurting. We help.

Sadness is our indication - our admission, even - that something is very wrong. And as we work through our grief, sadness organizes our mind. Crying - and I mean a good, solid, sobbing cry with stuff coming out of your nose - is a cathartic tool our minds can use to clear a path for useful thought. And a clear thought path is a very, very useful thing for an activist mom fighting for the lives of children.

Image: "Inside Out" by Disney/Pixar

This summer's Disney/Pixar movie Inside Out treated us to a thoughtful allegory reminding kids and adults how healthy sadness can be. The emotion of Sadness is characterized by an unassuming, little blue character who shows her true worth when things are falling apart for the 11-year-old girl she helps control. The character of Sadness at her best shows compassion and finds solutions. Sadness calls attention to the things that are wrong in life and helps us deal with them...usually by starting with a good cry.

After the crying subsides comes a critical moment: the balance point of when we either slip into hopelessness or get down to the real work of changing the world around us. We can dry our eyes, blow our noses, and look at the problem with new clarity and sense of purpose. This tipping point leads to either action or acceptance that things are never going to change. It is a vulnerable time. The difference between these two reactions can have a lot to do with who is around us to help pick us up after we fall. Can we find supportive family, friends, and allies to help us move forward?

At a 2013 Clinton Global Initiative panel, Khalida Brohi - a Pakistani activist who founded the Sughar Empowerment Society at the age of 16 - spoke of how her father taught her to turn from frustration and sadness to action:

"Growing up I've cried a lot, a lot...I saw my cousins getting married very early age 9 years 11 years of age. My mom was married at 9 years of age. I saw my aunties and neighborhood women being beaten. I saw things happening and I could not make sense of it. I could only cry. I would go and hide myself in the house and I would cry and cry. But a lot of times I would cry in my father's arms and he would actually say something to me that I would always remember. Whenever I ran to my home and just hugged him and cried, he would say: "Khadila, my dear...

Don't cry. Strategize." 

Khadila Brohi with Bono. Image: AFP

And strategize she did. Her non-profit which takes it's name from a word meaning "skilled and confident woman" equips women in rural Pakistan with skills and resources necessary for economic and personal growth. Women from over 20 villages use embroidery skills to create fashionable products and sustain a small company. Even though Khalida's father did say "Don't cry," I don't believe he wanted to negate her emotion. He was an empowering influence guiding her to re-direct her negativity into positive social change.

As an activist, I sometimes get out of touch with my own sadness. Doing this kind of activism every day, I kind of have to be to some extent. I build up a wall to keep moving through the terrible stories and statistics routinely coming through my in-box. But it's a mistake to be completely out of touch. 

There are moments when a certain personal story tears my walls down, reduces me to tears, and ultimately makes me a better activist. One such moment came when I was listening to Raj Shah - then director of USAID - give a luncheon speech in Chicago. He spoke of horrible statistics of child mortality and malnutrition, all familiar to me. Then, he showed a picture of a trip to a refugee camp and related the story of a mother who travelled many miles to bring her child to the camp where he received life-saving care. It was an uplifting story. But then he called our attention to something in the background of the photo. At the time, he'd thought it was a pile of blankets. Instead, it was revealed that the small bundle of material actually concealed her other child who had not survived the journey. This mother had to literally put her dead child behind her in order to care for her surviving boy and talk to a visiting American to help her people get the aid they need to survive.

I broke.

I broke in a big, fantastic way with tears and removal of myself from the room. When my dam  explodes, there is a lot of salt water behind it. I cried and I didn't truly stop crying until later that night when I had a work call with RESULTS volunteer, Beth Wilson. In the midst of our work, I told her what was going on that day and wept for that child and all the children we haven't been able to reach with our advocacy and aid. She listened with great understanding and helped me re-commit myself to our work with a greater sense of urgency than existed the moment before I saw the picture.

So, the next time you break down, I hope you will take the time to listen to yourself about what is causing the tears. Seek out others who are willing to listen and support. And, finally, say to yourself with compassion and understanding, "Don't cry. Strategize."

Image: Book cover

Buy an autographed copy of "From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started" at my website www.changyit.com or order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any independent bookstore!