It's About the Ladder

We interrupt Lawyer Mama's fluff and drama for a political post. You've been warned!

Last month, several of the MOMocrats had the opportunity to meet with Elizabeth Edwards and to participate via conference call in a discussion regarding many important issues facing this nation. We discussed health care, education, Iraq, and many other issues. But one comment Ms. Edwards made in particular has stuck with me. She said:

John talks often about his biography. About how it is that he came from nothing. John's policies are about the ladder that people used to climb up to the American dream. A lot of those rungs are broken.

Education was a part of it. Making certain we were healthy and hearty. Making sure we got a good wage. All those things were a part of what made it possible to step from economically disadvantaged to middle class, from middle class to upper middle class. And the rungs
are all broken now. There is not as much mobility between the various parts of our society as their used to be. Disparities are becoming wider and more entrenched. The top 300,000 wage earners in this country earn as much as the bottom 150 million and the people in that
150 million feel less and less like they have a pathway to the top.

One of the things we are going to do is re-instill this idea that we can move, by our own efforts, move. The government can't make you climb the ladder, you have to climb it, but the government is responsible for making sure the ladder is there.

I'll admit it. Before becoming a parent, I didn't feel much responsibility for the world. I wasn't as concerned with ensuring that all children in this country have opportunities. But since I've become a mother, I see our world in an entirely different way. In every child, I see my own. In every parent, I see myself. And the thought of a child growing up without the opportunities that I had and my children will have makes me incredibly sad. Read More....