Marian Wright Edelman - The Measure of our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours

This book is from the heart of a woman who practices each lesson she preaches. It struck a deep chord in me as a mother trying to raise a daughter in difficult times.

Hillary Clinton

This book is dedicated to the legacy of my parents, Arthur Jerome
Wright and Maggie Leola Wright, and to their childrens children:
Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra
Julian Jr., Stan, Stephanie, and Crystal
Debbie, Harryeta, Harry Jr., and Schwannah
Pandit, Arthur Jr., and Krishna
Joy and Maggie

I MPORTANT TRANSITIONS have taken place in the Edelman family since The Measure of our Success was first published two years ago. My husband and I celebrated twenty-five years of marriage surrounded by our children and friends and are trying now to adjust to an empty nest.

Its great to have a bit more peace and quiet, to have a home less in constant shambles, and to realize that we can actually go away for the weekendtogetherrather than having one of us remain at home with adolescents. But we sorely miss the energy of youthful voices and loud music and the rituals that children infuse into family life. We are struggling to keep meal times together and to find new time to share rather than just more time to work.

Our children, like so many young people, are grappling with their own challengesdeciding what they want to do and how they can make a difference. Im deeply gratified that they are asking the right questions and having the right struggles. Im very proud that our oldest son is in his third year as a teachera calling I consider second in importance only to parenting; that our second son is in graduate school in England (both older sons spent the summer working with inner-city children at the Summerbridge and LEAP programs in New Haven); and that our youngest son, now in college, shared the realities of many children living in disadvantaged circumstances in our nations capital by working during the summer at the Sasha Bruce Runaway House.

Our nation has seen major transitions as well with a new president and first lady who are struggling themselves to juggle and balance work and family. They face the challenge of giving a teenage daughter as normal a life as possible in the White House fish-bowl and of being good parents, spouses, and children amid extraordinary public and professional pressures.

These experiences, which they share with millions of other Americans, are being reflected in new pro-family national policies. The Family and Medical Leave Act to enable parents to stay at home to bond with and care for newborn and adopted children or to tend seriously ill parents, after many unsuccessful attempts, is now law. A long overdue federal policy to ensure free immunization to every uninsured child and a Family Preservation Act to prevent child abuse and neglect and to strengthen parenting also are now law. A $21 billion investment over five years to make work pay and to help lift low-income families from poverty by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for low- and moderate-income working families has been enacted. And the nation is debating what national health reform we will havenot whether we will insure health security for Americans.

New voices in Congress include those of more women and more minority group members who are speaking up for greater child and family investment. Like our young president and first lady, many of them faced and face the day-to-day struggles of balancing work and family needs.

I am deeply grateful that many hundreds of people took the time to write me about Measure and to share their own family experiences and values. It has been profoundly satisfying to have so many affirm the spiritual, family, and community values my parents taught me that clearly transcend race, income, gender, age, ideology, and geography. And there are special pleasures: a teenage father who read Measure three times and committed himself to trying to be a good parent; a seventy-year-old formerly illiterate man who chose it as his first book to read; the mother of a child of mixed race and religion who was relieved that her efforts to preserve both religious and cultural traditions was shared by others; the white Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant fathers and mothers who said my parents messages were exactly those of their parents; and the countless Black men, women, and young people who wrote out of the joy of remembrance of a legacy of caring, service, family, and community that enabled so many African Americans to overcome slavery and segregation.

They believe, as I do, that the armors of love and family and community and service are strong enough to realize Americas promise and Gods gift of a purposeful life for every child.

T HE 8 10 PHOTOGRAPH of my parents wedding occupies a prominent place in both the living room of my house and the recesses of my mind. A record of the pivotal event in the lives of my father and mother, it also signifies my strikingly diverse heritage. In the middle of the nuptial scene stand my parents, with my uncles and aunts, now long since gray, and grandparents, some since gone, at their side. To my fathers right, the group are Minneapolis Conservative Jews, three generations removed from Russia, one generation removed from poverty. My grandfather, stern as always, beckons me to persevere as he did. Grandpa supported his entire family from age twelve, when he peddled papers on the freezing corners of St. Paul for nickels and dimes. He exudes the satisfaction of having raised both himself and others up, but grimaces as if to tell me that the fight is far from over. To the left of my mother, the wedding participants are Black Baptists from Bennettsville, South Carolina. They stare fiercely into my eyes, urging me to carry on a tradition forged with sweat, toil, and pride in the cotton field and the pulpit.

My mother, Marian Wright Edelman, has carried on the values of her father and mother, dedicating her life to helping others as a child advocate. Probably one of the most honest people in the world, she is tirelessly devoted to both her children and her cause.

The legacy of our parents and ancestors influences each of us in different ways. Unlike many people my age, I am acutely aware of my familys past. It has for me proven both overwhelming and motivating, burdening and uplifting. I wonder how I would have reacted if I had come up against the obstacles that so many of my relatives struggled to overcome. And I am aware that my mothers is an especially difficult and challenging example to follow, especially in a time in which causes are easy to find but hard to champion effectively, and in which children are earlier and earlier conceived but more and more difficult to nurture.

Our eras as well as our legacies shape us, and in this certainly I am no exception. Born in 1970, I am indebted more than most to the civil rights movement and the struggles of many, like my mother, who exposed and fought racism despite inordinate risks. In fact, I think, had there been no civil rights movement, I would not be the person I am today. My parents might still have met in Mississippi in 1967, gotten married in 1968, and had three children. Josh first, Jonah (me) in the middle, and Ezra last. In the absence of the civil rights period, though, the person that I have becomethe cultural mulatto, the well-to-do Black liberal wary of the political process, the sheltered Bar-Mitzvah boy who has struggled with his blacknessnever could have existed. Society, I do not believe, would have allowed someone of such a diverse heritage to develop.