In uncertain times, think like a mother

One morning, 18 years ago,

I stepped out of a New York City subway
on a beautiful day in September.

The sun was warm and bright,
the sky was a clear, perfect blue.

I had my six-month-old son in one of those
front-facing baby carriers,

you know, so he could see everything.

And when I turned right on Sixth Avenue,

what he saw

was the World Trade Center on fire.

As soon as I realized
that this was an attack,

the first thing I did, without even
really thinking about it,

was to take my baby
and turn him around in that carrier.

I didn't want him to see
what was going on.

And I just remember feeling so grateful
that he was still young enough

that I didn't have to tell him
that someone had done this on purpose.

9/11 was like crossing a border,

a hostile border into dangerous,
uncharted territory.

The world was suddenly
in this terrifying new place,

and I was in this place as a new mother.

I remember my thoughts
kind of ping-ponging around

from, "How am I ever
going to protect this baby?"

to, "How am I ever
going to get some sleep?"

Well, my son turned 18 this year,

along with millions of other people
who were babies on 9/11.

And in that time,

we have all crossed into this hostile,
uncharted territory

of climate breakdown,

of endless wars,

of economic meltdowns,

of deep political divisions,

of the many crises around the world
that I don't need to list off,

because they are blaring at you
every single day from your news feed.

But there is something I've learned
in these 18 years of parenting

and in my years leading
a global women's rights organization.

There is a way to face
these big crises in the world

without feeling overwhelmed
and despairing.

It's simple, and it's powerful.

It's to think like a mother.

Now, to be clear, you don't
have to be a woman

or a parent to do this.

Thinking like a mother is a lens
that's available to everybody.

The poet Alexis De Veaux writes,

"Motherhood is not simply
the organic process of giving birth.

It's an understanding
of the needs of the world."

Now, it's easy to focus on
all of the obstacles

to making this the world we want:

greed, inequality, violence.

Yes, there is all of that.

But there's also the option
to plant a seed, a different seed,

and cultivate what you want to see grow,

even in the midst of crisis.

Majid from Iraq understands this.

He is a housepainter by trade

and someone who believes deeply
in equal rights for women.

When ISIS invaded
northern Iraq where he lives,

he worked with a local
women's organization

to help build an underground railroad,

an escape network
for women's rights activists

and LGBTIQ folks who were targeted
with assassination.

And when I asked Majid
why he risked his own life

to bring people to safety,

he said to me,

"If we want a brighter future,

we have to build it now in the dark times

so that one day we can live in the light."

That's what social justice work is,
and that's what mothers do.

We act in the present
with an idea of the future

that we want to bring about.

All of the best ideas
seem impossible at first.

But just in my lifetime,

we've seen the end of apartheid,

the affirmation that
women's rights are human rights,

marriage equality,

the fall of dictators
who ruled for decades

and so much more.

All of these things seemed impossible

until people took action
to make them happen,

and then, like, almost right away,

they seemed inevitable.

When I was growing up,

whether we were stuck in traffic
or dealing with a family tragedy,

my mother would say,

"Something good is going to happen,
we just don't know what it is yet."

Now, I will admit that my brothers and I
make fun of her for this,

but people ask me all the time

how I deal with the suffering
that I see in my work

in refugee camps and disaster zones,

and I think of my mom
and that seed of possibility

that she planted in me.

Because, when you believe
that something good is coming

and you're part of making it happen,

you start to be able to see
beyond the suffering

to how things could be.

Today, there is a new set
of necessary ideas

that seem impossible
but one day will feel inevitable:

that we could end violence against women,

make war a thing of the past,

learn to live in balance with nature
before it's too late

and make sure that everybody
has what they need to thrive.

Of course, being able to picture
a future like this is not the same thing

as knowing what to do
to make it come about,

but thinking like a mother
can help with that, too.

A few years ago,

East Africa was gripped by a famine,

and women I know from Somalia

walked for days carrying
their hungry children

in search of food and water.

A quarter of a million people died,

and half of them were babies and toddlers.

And while this catastrophe unfolded,

too much of the world looked away.

But a group of women farmers in Sudan,

including Fatima Ahmed --
that's her holding the corn --

heard about what was happening.

And they pooled together the extra money
that they had from their harvest

and asked me to send it
to those Somali mothers.

Now, these farmers could have decided
that they didn't have the power to act.

They were barely getting by themselves,

some of them.

They lived without electricity,
without furniture.

But they overrode that.

They did what mothers do:

they saw themselves as the solution
and they took action.

You do it all the time if you have kids.

You make major decisions
about their health care,

their education,
their emotional well-being,

even if you're not a doctor
or a teacher or a therapist.

You recognize what your child needs

and you step up to provide it
the best you can.

Thinking like a mother means
seeing the whole world

through the eyes of those
who are responsible

for its most vulnerable people.

And we're not used to thinking
of subsistence farmers as philanthropists,

but those women were practicing
the root meaning of philanthropy:

love for humanity.

What's at the core of thinking
like a mother shouldn't be a surprise:

it's love.

Because, love is more
than just an emotion.

It's a capacity, a verb,

an endlessly renewable resource --

and not just in our private lives.

We recognize hate in the public sphere.

Right? Hate speech, hate crimes.

But not love.

What is love in the public sphere?

Well, Cornel West, who is not
a mother but thinks like one,

says it best:

"Justice is what love
looks like in public."

And when we remember that every policy
is an expression of social values,

love stands out as that superstar value,

the one best able to account
for the most vulnerable among us.

And when we position love
as a kind of leading edge

in policy making,

we get new answers
to fundamental social questions,

like, "What's the economy for?"

"What is our commitment
to those in the path of the hurricane?"

"How do we greet those
arriving to our borders?"

When you think like a mother,

you prioritize the needs of the many,

not the whims of the few.

When you think like a mother,

you don't build a seawall
around beachfront property,

because that would divert floodwaters

to communities that are still exposed.

When you think like a mother,

you don't try to prosecute someone

for leaving water for people
crossing the desert.

Because, you know --

(Applause)

Because you know that migration,

just like mothering,

is an act of hope.

Now, not every mother
thinks like a mother.

When presented with a choice,
some of us have made the wrong one,

hiding behind weapons
or barbed wire or privilege

to deny the rest of the world,

thinking they can see their way to safety
in some kind of armed lifeboat

fueled by racism and xenophobia.

Not every mother is a role model,

but all of us have a choice.

Are we going to jump
on that armed lifeboat

or work together to build a mother ship
that can carry everyone?

You know how to build that mother ship,

how to repair the world
and ease the suffering.

Think like a mother.

Thinking like a mother
is a tool we can all use

to build the world we want.

Thank you.

(Applause)