By: Marie Goodwin, CODEPINK’s Local Peace Economy Coordinator
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was sitting in a classroom, a Ph.D. student and newly pregnant with my first child. Class was abruptly cut short when the news reached our professor, and we went to an auditorium with a giant screen on the stage, with CNN repeating images of the plane hitting the buildings, frantic bystanders, and the unthinkable collapse. All I could think at that moment was, “This means war. Innocent people will die for revenge.” It was the most horrific realization of my life.
When I was in the hospital months later holding my newborn, high on my love for this perfect little being, I looked into his tiny face and made a promise to protect him and surround him in a world of peace, despite living in a post 9/11 world teetering on war. Of course, my promise to my son (and subsequently his sister, born 3.5 years later) is a near universal mother’s promise and one that is impossible to accomplish in a world so profoundly engulfed by the war-economy. But I made the promise anyway and meant to keep it.
Over the course of the next two decades, I was deeply inspired by Julia Ward Howe’s powerful words in her Mother’s Day Proclamation: “We will not train our children to kill another mother’s child.” Julia Ward Howe is known for her proposal of Mother’s Day as a time to celebrate and honor peace. She was an anti-war activist, horrified by the suffering of the men who fought in the Civil War. She saw not only the physical carnage, but also the trauma of those who were damaged psychologically after killing and brutalizing other young men. Her proclamation, and the fervent activism by her daughter after she died, was how Mother’s Day became a national holiday.
Her vow in that proclamation mirrors my own. The promise of a mother to protect her child and the children of other mothers. The promise that I made to my children is a promise passed through generations; it is something that binds us to our great grandchildren and beyond. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy teaches that all decisions must consider how they will impact future generations. It acknowledges an intergenerational promise, and is inspirational in the same way the Julia Ward Howe’s words inspire. It asks us to make choices for peace. It demands that we think of the impact of our actions. It implores us to be mindful of all the ways one might inspire others to follow the same path.
The simple promise I made at the birth of my children required of me a new way of thinking, a new set of principles and guidelines. I felt I must hold my actions to higher standards: How do I keep all children, and the unborn generations to follow, safe from violence? What can I do today to promote peace?
Like so many other things, Mother’s Day has been appropriated by the war economy to convince us we need to consume in order to celebrate. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics, Mother’s Day spending this year is expected to top 34.1 billion dollars in cards, flowers, meals, and gifts; completely supplanting the original focus of the day, which was to honor and promote peace over conflict and domination. This is more than the entire yearly GDP of over 100 countries!
I’ve learned in my almost 25 years of activism that the true spirit of Mother’s Day can be fulfilled in tasks that focus on peace at home and in my local community. We have only so much power to create change, so the best use of one’s energy would be to focus on building strong relationships with neighbors. Other ways to encourage peace in your local community would be to start or participate in gift-based initiatives, plant trees you might not see bear fruit, learn a new skill and then teach it to others. These all withdraw your energy from systems of exploitation and violence and are ways you might participate in creating a web of support locally for mothers and children. As Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK writes, “This is our day, moms. Let’s reclaim it and embrace its origins. Our day should not be solely about us, as individuals, but about us embodying the collective desires of mothers around the world—to stop our children from killing and being killed by other mother’s children. No one is going to bring that to us on a breakfast platter; it’s something that we women demand.”
Responding to the violence of the War Economy with more systems of violence does not create peace! Now is the time to create the future; our past is currently being incinerated with the very very bad choices of those we elected to lead. We cannot extract ourselves from the failures of the War Economy except through building these networks and systems of the Peace Economy. With each new initiative, each step of connection we take, we build the future for the Seven Generations, a future grounded in peace. Julia Ward Howe would recognize the efforts of the Peace Economy. Won’t you join us?
Join us in our Mother's Day Call to End War! And take our Peace Economy Pledge!
Marie Goodwin is CODEPINK’s Local Peace Economy Coordinator. Marie has a Master’s Degree in Bronze Age Aegean archaeology from Bryn Mawr College. She left academia to pursue a career as an advocate for local economics, food, and culture. She started a local Timebank in her community, opened a volunteer-led FreeStore, and sat on the board of the first Transition Town in Pennsylvania. She also spent the last fifteen years consulting with like-minded authors, public speakers, politicians, and non-profits to help them successfully structure their online presence and manage various projects, events, and workshops.
