Jessica Estes: motherhood and activism

Below is an excerpt from an interview with Jessica Estes, listen to the full audio of the interview here.

How do you see your different lenses [identities] affect what you define as activism or how you interact with other people in the space?

I think that activism looks different for everybody. A lot of times people think that activism means that you’re in the streets, with a sign and blow horn yelling at the top of your lungs. They think of confrontation, civil disobedience, and getting arrested. But I also understand that there are spaces for activism that don’t look like that. So everybody doesn’t belong in the streets, not everybody is comfortable in the streets. If you’re self aware enough to realize that then I want you to make other choices. So for example my husband has never been to a protest with me and that’s okay, but he will put his money behind issues. He donates more money than I do on a regular basis to organizations that he feels supports ideals that he agrees with and I think that’s important. For people that want to be engaged but don’t necessarily want to protest or be active in the streets there are tons of different avenues to express yourself and engage without doing that. Informed voting is activism. Not only being an informed voter yourself but educating other people around you. So it’s one thing for you to have the knowledge and what’s going on, but if you just keep that inside that doesn’t mean anything. But if you have family over and friends over and talk about these issues that’s activism. If you’re writing articles or you have a blog or you’re doing something that feels right and authentic for you, that pushes the needle forward that’s also activism. I think about that a lot because as a mom, I have people that depend on me and there are times when I’m not in certain spaces because I have to be at home making dinner or helping my son with his homework. That doesn’t make me any less of an activist than anyone else. I obviously have to find, I hate to have to use the word balance, that’s just false there is no balance. But I have to find the space to actually be a good mom, take care of myself, and actually do this work.

A lot of activism is a combination of personal life experiences, being a part of a community, and larger systems of oppression. How do you measure impact or success?

Measuring success is so hard, but it is so important to find the little wins. They might be really small and almost not noticeable.

As an intern with Jobs with Justice I was really excited and invigorated by watching these workers come out and protest and strike. Seeing how they had the courage to walk off their job and then walk back the next day and say “this is the right for me to go on strike and now I’m going back to work.” That was just amazing to me. After all that hard work, we got the minimum wage and it was retracted. But I am energized by being around people who don’t let that stop them. There is a large network of people that are always fighting the system and that’s very invigorating. I have to think about these things for my son, I can’t just say “well, forget it”. I find joy in his laughter, his success, and his excitement in the little things that I do. When I went to D.C recently he was super excited because he thought I was talking to the President or something.

Are there areas activists could use more resources or support?

People who do this work end up having physiological and psychological effects. People have heart attacks, develop depression, and have heart disease. I think it’s due to the load of stress that comes with this work and the lack of consideration for how important it is to rest. People feel guilty when they rest. People feel guilty when they rest in any line of work, but because lives are on the line in this work people feel 80 times more guilty. If i don’t go to this meeting what does that mean? If i don’t go to this protest? If i’m not there to be a peacekeeper? So people don’t take care of themselves.

Because there aren’t many moms in activism it’s a taboo for someone to be like “I can’t do that” or “this is my limit”. People should be taking that time whether they have kids or not, but I can definitely see why a mom in this work might step away from it because it’s hard enough to deal with the work itself and being a parent. But then to deal with this taboo element, perhaps people judging you or decipher how committed you really are creates a space where mom’s feel like they cannot be in. I think it’s ironic because if more moms were in this space there would be more self care, because we have to do it.

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Jessica is a mother and Statewide Organizer at NARAL Pro-Choice America. She is currently working to expose fake health care clinics or “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPC’s). You can support her efforts by:

• Finding out what CPC’s are operating in your community or city and spreading the word (Birthright and ThriVe are the ones that operate in St. Louis, if you’re not in St. Louis check out #ExposeFakeClinics)
• Signing up for the NARAL Pro-Choice email list