Hey friends, I'm so glad you're here. I'm Caitlin, and this is How to Be a Grown Up, the how-to show for moms who feel compelled to take political action, but don't actually have the bandwidth to make their political action be their entire personality. Being a politically engaged mom is a marathon. It's not a sprint, especially in times like these. So today I am kind of following up on my last episode, which was about, you know, self-care for moms trying to be politically engaged and how to do so in a way that doesn't burn you out. So aligning your action with your capacity and to here's what that actually looks like in your life. Before I do that, though, please make sure you're subscribed to the show. Hit follow, hit subscribe, leave us a review, do something like that that helps us get more visibility because I think that this topic is an important one for moms right now. That said, before I get started, I do want to also mention a few of the sources that I used for today's episode. ACLU of Texas, ACLU in general is a great resource for stuff like this. Public Education Defense Fund, especially the one in Texas, how to contact representatives from Save Texas Schools. Let's see, a Facebook post about talking to your local school board representatives. The let's see, publichealthdegrees.org talking about mutual aid and American Friends Service Committee and any other resources I have will be in the blog post for this episode. And be sure to check that out in the show notes. So I already mentioned this before, but I want to just bring this up one more time. We talked about in the last episode not like trying to save democracy by yourself between soccer practice and bedtime. Just instead of doing that, you know, trying to match your action to your actual capacity, your actual bandwidth. So today is the okay, but what do I actually do episode? So I'm talking about school boards, library boards, mutual aid, and how to show up to certain events with kids and snacks. So I want you to keep this ground rule in mind. Activism for busy parents, keep this in your head. Hyper-local action counts. You don't have to go viral to matter. You don't have to start a giant movement that the entire country takes part in. You can be very politically active and make an impact in your neighborhood locally. If all you can do this month is just send one email about a book ban or bring snacks to a mutual aid event, that's the real grown-up work here. So I'm going to introduce this whole, you know, the stay in your lane concept of like, you know, just mind your own business. Well, you get to choose your lane when it comes to activism here. So you're going to choose one local focus instead of trying to do everything. None of us can do everything. There's too much to be able to do everything right now. So here are the three lanes that you may consider wanting to be a part of if you're trying to look for ways to take action locally. Schools. So school boards, PTO, or PTA, whatever you guys call it, your parent teacher, association, or organization, curriculum, book bands, et cetera. So schools is one, libraries is another, library boards, story times, book challenges, again, book bands, or mutual aid. So neighbors helping neighbors, giving food, giving rides, helping with supplies, things like that. And the best way to figure out which lane you want to be in is to ask yourself, what's already part of my life? If you live at the school anyway, take the school's lane. If you love books and story time, choose the library lane. If you're the friend who organizes the meal train, then maybe you're the mutual aid lane person. Pick one lane for this season of your life. And you're allowed to say, like this season, I'm a school board email mom. I'm not an everything everywhere mom. So here are some hyper-local actions by capacity level. So these are concrete ideas for low and medium and high capacity weeks in each one of these lanes that I've mentioned here. Ariella likes to use the phrase, have the spoons. I don't have the spoons for this, I do have the spoons for that. So think of these as low spoon, medium spoon, and high spoon ideas. Let's start with the school's lane, because you know that's the one that's nearest and dearest to my heart. So if it's a low capacity week for you, reply to a school or PTO email, parent PTA, sorry, PTA email with support saying things like, thank you for speaking up about issue, whatever that may be. As a parent, I support keeping our school inclusive and student-centered. Just what that reply alone could probably be very supportive to the person receiving it. Sign a petition from a group you trust, or forward one useful factual resource to another parent. Low spoons. Okay. Medium spoons. Send a short email to the school board about a specific concern that you have. Book bans, inclusive policies, teacher support, et cetera. And you can send it with the following. I'm just going to give you a template for it. So your subject line is parent in whatever your district name is. Please support whatever the specific issue is. And you're going to say, Dear board member, whoever that may be, I'm a parent at school. I'm writing to ask you to either approve or oppose a specific policy or proposal. Make sure you have the name of the policy or proposal in there. Because, and then one to two sentence about how it impacts your child in the classroom. Our kids deserve whatever your value may be: inclusive, accurate, age-appropriate, education. And thank you for your work and your time. Sincerely, name parent of a third grade student, whatever it may be. I'll put this template in the blog post so that you can see it. It'll make a lot more sense when you see like the brackets where I put in the blanks. Another medium capacity thing you might do is fill out a survey. Sometimes, you know, you get an email that says, fill out this quick survey. And you're like, it's not going to be quick. It's going to be like 20 minutes. But if you have medium capacity spoons, medium spoons, fill it out. Or you could attend one district Zoom meeting and just listen. You don't have to participate, just listen so that you understand what's going on. If it's a high capacity or spoons week for you and you're in the school's lane, show up in person at a school board meeting. If you had to bring your kids, you're going to tell your kids, we're bringing headphones, we're bringing coloring, we're bringing snacks. If you make it through 45 minutes, great. Give a one to two minute public comment if you want to. And you can help draft, you know, talking points for a group or a one pager for other parents. All high capacity things, all related to schools. Let's shift gears and go to the libraries lane. And I'm less, I'm I'm not a libraries lane person. So these are the these are some ideas that I have that I got from those sources. And I'm, you know, if I'm wrong about any of these, please, if you're somebody who can help, do send in and I'll correct myself. But here's what I got. If it's a low capacity week, email or fill out a form thanking librarians for inclusive collections and programs. All you have to do is say, I'm a parent in whatever your city is, and I appreciate the diverse books and story times you offer. It matters to our family. That's a letter of support that that library can then use to advocate for more programs that are like the ones that you're approving of. You can reserve or check out challenged or banned books. Then the library has evidence that those books are being read. It's a big deal. Medium capacity for library lane. Write to the library board about supporting librarians and opposing book bands. Bring your kids to a library event that aligns with your values, like a pride story time or a visit from a diverse author. Showing up politely and filling seats is a form of support. Libraries do like count. They look at how many people attend these events and they use that information to inform how to best serve the community. That is a way of showing your support. If it's a high capacity week, attend a library board meeting where book challenges are on the agenda. Or maybe you organize a low-key show of support like kids' artwork or thank you notes from families. Completely doable things just within the amount of capacity that you have. Let's talk about mutual aid. So these are some of the ones that we kind of touched on a little bit last week, but low capacity, send five to ten bucks to a mutual aid fund if you have it. Or add an extra pack of diapers or wipes or shelf stables food to your grocery store run and drop it off at a local pantry or community fridge on your way home. If you have more capacity, so this is a medium capacity week, sign up for one slot on a meal train, ride to an appointment, dropping off groceries, do one thing to support a neighbor. One thing, not the whole spreadsheet, just one event, one time slot. Or you can host a simple swap among friends, or put some things out for maybe your local buy nothing group. If it's a high capacity week, help coordinate logistics for another mutual aid group once a month. So maybe you are the person who sends out reminder texts, or you are the person who creates a signup sheet. Or you could host a drive at a school or a daycare or your neighborhood. There's a person in our neighborhood who volunteers to collect all the styrofoam for the neighborhood. You bring it to her house in a bag. She will take it to the local styrofoam processing place, which you can tell I know nothing about because I don't ever bring it there. She does it for me. Something like that can be really helpful. You can be the person who says, bring all your batteries to my house. I will take them to where they need to go to be processed properly. It's a great way to do that. High capacity. And you can set it up so that you don't have to go unless it's a high capacity week. But people can still bring you stuff and you're still helping. So let's move on a little bit and talk about some of these templates and scripts that you can use. These are like plug and play. Y'all know I love a good sentence frame. I probably say that every week. But these are plug and play templates so that you don't have to get stuck staring at a blank email, not knowing what to say, or not knowing what to say in a phone call that you make. So if you're looking to send an email to a local official, like a school or a library, use your best mob voice. Parent in city or district asking you to support issue. There's your subject line. Dear name, members of the board, whoever it may be, I'm a parent of a grade or age student at this school and a regular user of our public library. I'm writing to ask you to either support or oppose a specific policy. This matters to me because, and here's your one sentence, our kids need whatever it may need. Inclusive libraries, age-appropriate, honest education, safe, welcoming schools, whatever that may be. To learn and thrive, please vote to whatever they need to do to support that. Thank you for your time and your service, your name, your neighborhood, and the parent you are, kids' age and grade level. I'm going to put this on the blog post. You can literally copy and paste that and fill in the blanks. It's not a thesis defense, it's an email from a real human. They know you don't have time for a lot, but just the fact that they hear from you matters, and those things get counted. So the number of people who they hear from tends to make them, you know, take action according to their constituents. So that's important. Pretty similar if you want to use a template for like a phone call. Hi, my name is whatever your name is, and I'm a parent in the city or the school district. I'm calling to ask you to support or oppose this issue. This matters to me because, again, your one sentence. Please pass along that I support whatever it may be. I support inclusive libraries. I oppose book bans. I want our school to say welcoming for all students, whatever that may be. Thank you for your time. Hang up. You can put that in your notes app and make leave a message with a kid yelling in the background. Staffers hear that all the time. A lot of the time you end up leaving a message, but sometimes people do answer. And the one time that I did that and someone actually did answer, she was hearing my dog bark in the background. She's like, oh no, don't even worry about it. I hear it all the time. Truly, they don't care. Let's say you decided that you wanted to attend an event. We're going to shift your just a good a little bit here. And this is your show up with kids guide. We all know the tricks for keeping kids quiet and distracted during these events. This is not the we don't do screen time, okay? This is the bring all the ammunition you have so that you can show up and participate or listen. That can be your goal. Just listen at an event. You're gonna set one goal for yourself. We're gonna be there for 45 minutes. Or I'm gonna give one comment and then we're gonna leave. You're gonna pack snacks that won't crinkle too loudly. This is not the time for your kid to have a giant piece of bubblegum where they start smacking, or those really crunchy chips that go when they chew into them. This isn't the time for that. Quiet snacks, quiet activities, coloring, sticker books, headphones, downloaded show, iPad with the game on it, whatever it needs to be. This is the time for that. And then you're gonna tell your kids, we're going to a meeting where grown-ups talk about decisions for our school or our library or whatever it may be. Our job is to listen and be respectful. If you get bored, that's okay. You can read, you can draw, you can listen to your show, you can play your game, you cannot throw a fit, you cannot interrupt mom. During the event, you're gonna sit as close to the exit as you can. I feel like one of the hallmarks of being a grown ad grown-up, a grown adult, is that when you realize that the real good parking spaces at the grocery store are the ones right next to the cart return. This is the same thing. You don't want to sit close. You want to sit close to the exit. Not close to the front, close to the exit. And if possible, you're gonna tag team with another adult. Maybe that other adult will say, Okay, when you're making your comment, I'll take the kids out into the hallway and we'll walk around and look at all the weird portraits or whatever. After the event's over, you're gonna debrief with your kids. How'd that feel? It mattered that we were there because or tell me about the game you played while mommy was talking. Who cares? Just make sure that you understand they were there. They helped you by, you know, either ignoring what you were doing or being quiet, whatever it is. Acknowledge that they were there and say thank you. So, super lightning speed episode. I'll have all those scripts and templates on the blog post, so make sure you go there to copy them. Literally copy and paste, not gatekeeping here. But I just want to say a few things here to close. One, small consistent actions at the local level are valid and very important. Those are the impacts, or those are the things that impact your day-to-day life. There's nothing wrong with not taking these big sweeping federal viral moves. You can make an impact locally, and those things will impact your day-to-day. You are also allowed to be a send one email this month activist. You're making your voice heard. That's what activism is. Hyperlocal decisions about schools and libraries and communities support and shape your kids' daily lives, even more than those elections that they see on TV. And yes, elections matter. They're so, so important. If they, if your if your vote didn't matter, people wouldn't be trying to suppress it. So it does matter. But these super local decisions that get made that impact the books your kids can read in school, that's a big deal. And when your kids see you taking steps to advocate for the things that matter, that align with your values, that do so within the means that you have, within the bandwidth you have, within the time that you have on your calendar, they're seeing you balance advocacy with self-care. That's a big deal. So your tiny homework, tiny, tiny, tiny. Pick one lane for this season. What's your local lane? Is it gonna be schools? Is it gonna be libraries? Is it gonna be mutual aid? And then you're gonna choose one low capacity, low spoons action from that lane and do it this week. You're gonna send the email, sign up for one slot, write one thank you note. Okay. Remember, you don't have to be the main character of the resistance. We have some of those already. We don't need you to do that. We need you to support the resistance that you are working towards. Support the actions you are working towards. Support the actions that matter the most to you, the values that matter the most to you. You can be the mom who sends the email, shows up with goldfish and crayons, and keeps your kid's world a little kinder. That's all you have to do. But it makes a big difference. My last thing is what would you like to see next? I feel like these topics are unfortunately writing themselves right now. But there's a a link in the show notes that says send me a text. You can send me a text that way. I'll get it right away. And I'd love to know what you want to see next along the lines of these past few episodes I've had. So subscribe now so you don't miss our next episode. Love you mean it. Make great choices. Bye.