PROTECT MOTHERS

“There's a very famous piece of research by a man named Michael Meany. And he researched mammals. And he said that the mammal mothers who, the rat mothers who licked and groomed their young passed down generationally the ability in the next generation to lick and groom their young. But if a mother could not lick and groom her young, she did not pass down the ability to lick and groom to the next generation. Now that's not genetic. That's called the inheritance of acquired characteristics.”

“For some women, it's like a life-changing moment where they look at this child and the dependency, the attachment starts right away. For other women, dependency, this level of need of this child on you doesn't open up happy doors of, doesn't open up a door to the past of a beautiful relationship with your mother or a beautiful relationship with your parents. Instead it opens up terror, fear, even rage.”

“So we have a lot, obviously, business in South America. I'm sure Alex has told you. So, you know, my clients are in Cartagena. They're all I'm gonna tell you right now, they're all cartel level guys. They're all badasses. They they they are the real deal. They when I talk, they don't have fuck you money. They have fuck everyone money. Right? Like, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, you know? I don't touch the product side. I don't wanna I don't want any fucking deal with with the fucking Coke.”

“And then almost a whole year later, he was finally sentenced. And at the sentencing hearing, his lawyer again tried to say that he was only trying to get Priscilla deported, at which point the judge said, you know, that crime that you're describing is actually called kidnapping, and it's punishable by up to twenty years in prison. So maybe just stop. And then she sentenced him to the maximum, which is ten years of prison.”

“The messaging should have been, work outside the home is something you should have the right to choose. It should be something that brings meaning to your life and brings money into your home, but it shouldn't replace nurturing your children. And that if you have young children, they need you, but you can do everything in life, you just can't do it all at the same time. That should have been the messaging.”

“He asked me for this porridge that he used to like. Like, it kind of he had loved it since he was a baby and he called it blue porridge. He just said to me, did you bring blue porridge? I said, yeah. They make it in Zimbabwe. And I had carried it with me. He asked me to make it for him, like immediately. Then I did like in a little cup with warm water. I made it for him and he ate it. And, yeah, I knew that he would slowly remember me and things would get back to where they were, if he could remember simple things like that.”

“We went on a trip to, Kariba. It's a big lake in Zimbabwe. And I think it was like on the second day or something, we had a disagreement, like a fight. And, he left, our room and I didn't know that he had done this, but he went to his mom's room. And I found him later. I I was walking past her room, and she had, like, these doors that opened outside. I just looked in, and I saw him, like, lying on her bed, and she was, like, lying there, like, stroking his hair.”

“So at first, it didn't. At first, he was just trying to sell me what the jury didn't buy, which was that he was framed. He was only trying to get Priscilla deported. But then I think we both proved to be very stubborn. And I and I was like, okay. Well, you know, maybe his job is to try to bullshit me, and and my job is to try to cut through the bullshit. And thirty five hours of conversations later, I genuinely felt compassion for him.”

“Alan would like to proceed. The time lapses between the agents saying that's up to you, and Alan's agreement to proceed with the more permanent option is a fraction of a second. He doesn't take a breath. He doesn't pretend to consider the decision. He doesn't double check that he understood the agent correctly. He doesn't even ask how much money he'll save by going for the cheaper option. He jumps right in with both feet.”

“My family. If I had to give it an adjective, it's elastic. Forty five years ago, my parents, my little brother, and I came over to this country from the Soviet Union, extending the family across continents. Over the decades, the family, my father really, stretched to absorb spouses, in laws, even though they spoke a different language. Children both biological and adopted, ex spouses who chose to stick around, and eventually grandchildren. Over those same decades, as in any family, people made bad decisions, said things they hope no one would remember, got mad at each other, held grudges, came around, and the family stretched as needed. And then it snapped.”

“Look. They're gonna lose their mother. Right? She's fucking young. Right? How do we protect the kids? As long as they're not witness to violence. That's the word he used, violence. The undercover agent is methodical. He keeps coming closer to saying she will be killed, and he keeps pushing Alan to consider the hypothetical stakes. The children will lose their mother forever. Alan blithely keeps incriminating himself. As long as the kids wouldn't see the murder happen, he didn't have other concerns.”

“We don't value mothering in modern times because we value things like self-sufficiency and independence and self-determination, nurturing, caregiving. We don't value these things in the Western world. And I also think that the women's movement of the 60s, although it did a lot of good for women, a lot of great things for women in terms of giving them freedom, it also did a lot of terrible things for children because the messaging should have been, work outside the home is something you should have the right to choose.”

“It took women from the patriarchy of being ruled by men to being in institutions where they behave like men, where they didn't allow themselves to be the best female leaders they could be, because as female leaders, we would never abandon our children. So, we would find ways to, we would do workarounds. We would, you know, in other parts of the world, children go with you to work, children go to your store that you keep, children go to the farm, while you're picking potatoes.”