Editor’s note: This commentary is by Brenda Siegel, who is the executive and artistic director of the Southern Vermont Dance Festival, chair of the Newfane Democratic Committee and delegate to the Windham County Democratic Committee. She was a candidate in the Democratic primary for governor in 2018 and is an anti-poverty activist and single mom from Newfane.
Just like many people, I have experienced way more than my fair share of tragedy and barriers. I have often felt like I was staring at opportunity through an unbreakable glass room with no door. As a single mom and the only parent of my child, I always felt that I did not have a voice or that my voice did not have value. I beat myself up for not being able to perform the tasks and economic value of two parents.
When people have questioned the “choices” that I have made, which always comes as a vague accusation that my situation is my fault, I rarely talk about the importance of the work that I do. How that very accusation would rob our children of the arts, rob them of dance, music, and theater, if we shamed every struggling artist so they made a different choice. I don’t talk about what an incredible opportunity it was to teach young women how to be organizers, to fundraise, to design and to chase their dreams.
I also rarely bring up what it was like to live a life full of flying daggers, unsure of when the next life changing tragic event would occur or how that is the experience of so many people in our time. I almost never talk about the brave act of each person who turns those adverse life experiences into actions that might help others.
I hardly ever say, “By the way, I did make different choice. I applied to law school. I got in, I didn’t have child care. I deferred a year, hoping I could access child care. I still couldn’t access child care, so, I let it go.” I don’t talk about the times when I was offered work that paid better, but it didn’t pay enough for the commute, or the added child care. I don’t ever bring up the mere experience of waking up each morning with my head spinning knowing that today might be the day my power gets shut off and how little one can get done when you are chasing your basic needs as they slip away.
What I do instead is internalize the shame that perhaps my life is hard because of something that I did wrong. After all, I did grow up in an upper middle class family. I do have safety nets that others in my situation do not. Why can’t I find my way out? I am not alone, this is the experience of too many Vermonters and those across this country. We internalize your shame.
When other people are in this situation, I remind them they are not doing anything wrong, the system is designed this way. I remind them that raising a child alone is a real challenge. I assure them that doing the work of two parents by oneself is not possible. I advise them to let some stuff go and just enjoy their child. I open up to them that I would be homeless if I hadn’t had a family I could live with, more than once in my son’s life. I did nothing magical, in those moments where I would have completely lost my footing, I had a little help, that is all that was different. I let them know that no one does it alone, everyone needs support.
Throughout my life, I have stood up for other people because I had to try. Like many women across the country, I did not feel like I deserved that for myself or that I belonged leading or being in charge, and because of that I consistently undervalued myself. This is because still, today, even people who I expect to know better, make a judgement about those who struggle.
Just a few nights ago, I found myself infuriated at the line of thinking in electoral politics that says certain people “can’t win.” I couldn’t figure out why. Why does it bother me? This goes with the territory. When people propose this, they are saying to the 25-year-old single mom who is alone with a baby that she can’t ever do this, to the black and brown people across the state who have obstacle after obstacle that they can’t, to the indigenous folks, whose land we stand on, that this just isn’t for them. Why? Because they don’t already have power. In a system that has no actual ladders, but instead just fiery hoops that most of us can’t jump through.
None of us should be OK with a system that requires folks to climb an unstable ladder with broken rungs and rotten wood. We are seeing people run and win across the country who we were told “can’t win.” Perhaps it is time for us all to believe in the change that we want and that we are witnessing. If we don’t, if we aren’t willing, than we are only perpetuating a system that continues to allow people with power to hold power, and those without to stand in the glass room looking at opportunities that are not available to them.
Enough of that shame. So many of us have gained incredibly valuable leadership experience in the ways that we have had access too. We did it by organizing, by speaking out, by leading and making change on the ground, in our communities. We did it by showing up at the selectboard meeting and at the Statehouse with our children in tow. We did it by researching and pushing for change within the power that we have available to us. Forget the glass ceiling, it is time to shatter the whole darn room. Let’s step into our power, our leadership, our strength. Every. Single. One. of us. In whatever way we feel is best.
