If you don’t mind, we would like to start your Mother’s Day weekend off by saying the quiet truth about motherhood out loud– all mothers are different. Our experiences as mothers as well as our relationships with our mothers are vast. Whether we want to admit it out loud in a message of admiration on Facebook or in a private moment of recognition in therapy, mothers are just people.
When we expand our emotional capacity to make room for the humanity of our creators and caregivers, we are better able to apply grace to ourselves. At the heart of our families, communities, and democracy as a whole are people doing the best they know how to do to look after themselves and the people around them.
This Mother’s Day is a great time to reflect on the connections between parenting and abolition work within a young democracy that still has some growing up to do. A healthy democracy is one that supports our right to create the families we choose as well as ensure that everyone within those families have access to fundamental human rights and resources to keep those families together.
With this reminder – in a year fraught with intersecting events and crises, from general elections to profound geopolitical violence – as we commit to possibility and diligently fight to reclaim and build towards a radically inclusive democracy, we are inspired by the community affirming work happening through the Spark Justice Fund (SJF).
SJF resources grassroots organizing groups that are ending money bail and unjust pretrial detention policies. It’s alarming how many people are locked away in jails solely due to poverty and the inability to afford bail. The prison industrial complex directly attacks the wellness of communities by locking people away. During this season where we make time to celebrate the gift of togetherness, we are holding space for new possibilities:
- A world where mothers, regardless of their mistakes or imperfections, are raised up with dignity and care.
- A world where we look to communities to create innovative alternatives to mass incarceration.
- A world where cash bail and prisons are an unfortunate part of our past but not our future.
Your continued support of the Spark Justice Fund helps to do more than just imagine these possibilities. It puts them into action.