Learning Care
Written for the Mindfulness for Mamas Community
As the only mothers serving on the Town Council and County Commission, we have grown closer to each other during this time. Like all of you, when the coronavirus switch flipped, we found ourselves catapulted into new territory professionally and at home. As we leaned on each other, we found ourselves connecting with and leaning on women throughout our community. We’ve been scared and needed our own mothers to remind us of our strength. As mothers and leaders, we want to keep our families and our community healthy and thriving. And while we have all had a crash course in virology and pandemics, the word that we find ourselves using again and again and again is so simple: Care. Society has been faced with the startling reality of what the (hidden) care work so often done by women looks like. We’ve found ourselves asking our friends and neighbors to care by wearing a mask. We’ve thanked the professionals giving care at the hospital and health department. We’ve cared by donating, volunteering, and simply staying home.
We’ve had to adapt. To let go. To re-learn self-care.
One hundred years ago this month, women’s inherent right to vote was memorialized through the passage of the 19th Amendment. We’ve been learning about women from this period and the odds they faced.
When you exercise your right to vote on August 18, we encourage you to remember that the status quo is not mandatory. That each of you are the caring leader that your family, your workplace, your community need. And that by leaning on each other, a new future of caring is possible.
Hailey Morton Levinson and Natalia D. Macker
Natalia D. Macker is Chairwoman of the Teton County Commission and Artistic Director of Off Square Theatre. Hailey Morton Levinson is Vice Mayor of the Town of Jackson and runs Inn on the Creek with her family.
