My Daughter Named Her Baby Unicorn "Kamala" - Empathy For the Win! #53 by Darcy Reeder
Representation matters.
Weekly Newsletter #53
I bawled my eyes out this weekend, watching Vice President-elect Kamala Harris speak about how she’s about to be the first female VP, and all the other firsts: first Black VP and first East Asian VP, first VP who’s the child of immigrants. The 6-year-old snuggling on my lap doesn’t cry at poignant things yet, but she showed us how important the day was to her when, in her pretend play as a “super-unicorn” named Sparkles, she told me she had 9 babies and the first one was named Kamala.
(Pictured: The unicorn baby name list my daughter made, once she’d come up with all 9 names. Kamala is spelled “Comyla” here.)
Kamala Harris isn’t my perfect candidate. But Biden/Harris is going to be a huge relief and a literal life-saver after the last 4 years, and it will also be an opportunity to push for Progressive changes.
Representation matters.
And we can’t overstate the effect of over half of this country finally being able to see themselves in a position of power. Remember “The Obama Effect”? Here’s a quote from the abstract of a study on The Obama Effect:
“When Obama’s stereotype-defying accomplishments garnered national attention – just after his convention speech, and election to the presidency – they had a profound beneficial effect on Black-Americans’ exam performance, such that the negative effects of stereotype threat were dramatically reduced.”
My daughter wants to know why all of the vice presidents and all of the presidents up until Obama were white Christian men. She says she wishes Kamala Harris was president instead of Joe Biden. She’s only 6, but she’s already tired of waiting for a woman president.
Speaking of how representation matters…
This viral story hit 1,000 fans.
My debut for Gen—about when I called out a children’s book author for leaving women out of the story, and he actually listened—was featured on Medium’s front page last year. Over 28K views later, my story finally hit 1,000 fans.
Here’s the email I got, celebrating the milestone:
What are fans? Fans are people who clapped for my essay, regardless of whether they clapped only once or up to 50 times (I prefer 50 times). When Medium members read my writing, I earn money. And when people clap for my writing, Medium shares it more.
So, even if you’re not a paying Medium member, each time you give my writing a round of applause, you’re telling the Medium algorithm to show my writing to more people who are paying members. Thanks for your applause! Here’s the link to the piece that just hit 1,000 fans.
My kid is amazing!
I already talked about my kiddo a whole lot in this newsletter. But I also want to capture a really fantastic moment that happened this week.
A few weeks ago, during Party School, I taught her how to make peanut butter and jelly all by herself. And she’s made it for herself for breakfast about 10 times now.
Then, I woke up to this, the first time ever my kiddo surprised me by making breakfast for me. (Did I mention I cry at poignant things?)
Thanks for reading, friends! I seriously appreciate all your reads, claps—you can clap up to 50 times per piece—highlights, comments, and shares.
I’m on a hiatus from publishing on Medium right now while I full-time pandemic-parent and homeschool my kiddo. But all of my old writing continues to earn money when Medium members read it. If you enjoyed these Medium essays, please share my writing on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you’d like!
Love,
Darcy