It’s been a riveting year in politics so far, and promises to be even more so in coming months. Who better than regular Cribsheet commenter Robin Marty to guest blog on how her baby has changed her politics…

Robin and Violet

You often hear people say that all politics is local.

I’d go one step beyond that, and say all politics is familial. I’ve followed politics as an amused spectator ever since I left college in 1999. I sat up for hours waiting for Florida to get called in 2000, heading to bed believing it was won by Bush and waking up to find it was still too close to call.

By 2003 I fell in love with my first candidate, and by 2004 I felt the first crushing blow of defeat. It was heartbreaking, but it was still mostly intellectual to me — like watching your favorite football team crumble during the playoffs.

I’m one of the few lucky people able to turn a love of Monday-morning-politicking into an actual job, establishing and supporting progressive online news sites. But it took having a child to finally make me understand the importance of participating in my own government.

Suddenly talking about social security turned into whether I would be a burden to my baby when I’m old. Environmental issues weren’t just the cost of recycling or finding alternative energies, it became what sort of world I’m going to leave my daughter.

Whether a public school fails or succeeds, whether a neighborhood thrives, crime, housing, everything becomes personal in a way that it never was before.

In the nearly seven months since my child was born, the world has been recast for me as if I had suddenly put on 3D glasses. I’ve discovered a new dimension, a new layer to my life. The things I believed — that we needed to work together as a community, that health care access and education were a right that every person deserves, have become more tangible.

Just as I spent the first three months hypersensitive to every noise in the baby’s room, finding every morning that she woke up to be a miracle, I find myself hypersensitive to every potential injustice she could face in this world, and wanting to recreate it as the most gentle, accepting, happy environment any child has ever grown up in.

And that is essentially what politics is — the urgent need to remake the world into the place that you believe best fits your needs, and that of your family. Whether you see the most important of those to be a safe environment, or a world with natural parks to explore, or one where you have more financial ability to make your family content or surround yourself with your faith, you then chose the people to represent you that best adhere to your goals.

I always thought candidates kissing babies was a horrible cliche. But now I realize it’s more than just a really adorable photo op. The picture is the personification of loving, believing in, and fighting for the future.

Has having a baby enhanced or changed your view about a political issue?

Robin Marty is the Deputy Program Manager for the Center for Independent Media and former editor of Minnesota Independent. Robin blogs at The Powerliberal, which has slowly turned from politics to mommy blogging. She’s headed next week to the big Blogher conference in San Francisco and will write about it for Cribsheet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am and is filed under Family Life, Guest Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.