In case you are new to my blog , which will regularly appear on this MomsRising homepage (so check back in often!), my husband and I are wearing the MomsRising.org t-shirts everyday until Paid Family Leave is passed in Washington State. My hope is that it will raise awareness for MomsRising.org and garner support for the passage of Paid Family Leave in Washington. Now let me take a moment to properly introduce myself and illuminate why I am taking on working for Change here at home: I am now an activist. It's not how I'd have classified myself a month ago, but my recent pledge to consider democracy as an action, as opposed to a concept, has me viewing myself differently. I am thirty-three years old. I was raised in poverty by a mother who fled an abusive husband and turned to the state for help after her self-esteem and self worth were beaten out of her and her five children. I say poverty and I wonder if you, the reader, know what I mean. It is a widely used word, and brings to mind many pictures, I want you to see mine. Poverty was living in a school bus that was converted to be our home...