There are people in this world that won’t agree with you. That’s fine. This is life. Some of those people will want to silence you by telling you that you haven’t done enough, experienced enough, advocated enough, marched enough or posted on social media enough to have a certain opinion.
That’s garbage.
I feel it whenever I go to publicly say something about my pro-life views. I feel the arguments coming that I must only care about the lives of the unborn and then do nothing to support women in crisis or policies that help the children born to those mothers. I know the accusations will come. And so I couch my statements in all my credentials and my credibility on this issue. I believe that children have an inherent right to life because they are humans with souls. I have dedicated my life to caring for those children through foster care and adoption. I have advocated for policies that support those kids. I volunteer my time for organizations that are the voices for those children and families. I work every day to help educate other parents on how to best love and care for those kids and the biological parents who love them, but may be struggling.
I have the right to have a voice on this issue. I back up my beliefs with my actions, my time, my finances. The value of ALL children is not theoretical to me. It is what I do every day.
And still it’s not enough for some people.
There will always be those who ask what I’ve done to advocate for those on death row, or to speak out against family separation at the border, or to be sure women fleeing domestic violence have a safe place to go, or to support policies that provide healthcare or free lunches or whatever the bill of the moment is. There are some people who seem to believe unless you have done EVERYTHING (and can show public receipts for all that you’ve done), then you can’t speak about anything.
That’s ridiculous.
But I think it’s a really easy jab to throw. It’s easy to accuse someone of not *really* caring because we aren’t doing everything possible. And that idea— the idea that if we aren’t doing everything, then we shouldn’t say anything– it makes it too easy to silence voices. It intimidates people out of taking any kind of stand because they’re worried about the pushback they’ll get for all the things they didn’t say or do before this moment.
I think it’s important that we are consistent with our values and beliefs. I think we need to be willing to follow up our votes with actions. We need to broaden our perspective to see the implications of the policies we support and be willing to get involved in finding solutions. But we can’t wait until we have unquestionable credibility on an issue to take a stand on that issue. That moment will never come.
Don’t let people tell you, “Well if you didn’t speak out about ______, then you have no right to have an opinion about _______.” or “So you care about ______, but where were you when ______?” That’s an impossible standard. Sometimes we don’t know enough to speak out about a certain issue. Sometimes it takes a lot of research, a lot of time to fully understand a topic or decide you’re willing to speak up about something. Sometimes we do a lot of actual hands and feet work in the background that people who accuse us of not “speaking out” don’t ever know about. Don’t let the fact that you didn’t express yourself sooner or more completely or more publicly on every single facet of a topic keep you from being willing to be a voice NOW on the things that matter.
In the work I do, I need people who have never cared about foster kids before, to start caring. I don’t care if you’ve never weighed in, never posted an article, never actually fostered a kid. It’s necessary for those people to be willing to listen and learn and then become voices for those kids. Just because someone has never done the work themselves doesn’t mean they can’t use their voice to make change or have an impact for good. Don’t wait until you know everything, have done everything or are willing to do everything to start caring. We all have a role to play and the expectation can’t be that each person should play every role before they can have a voice.
On topics we are passionate about, sometimes we need to boil it down to the heart of the matter. Are we willing to be bold on this even if we take heat for it? Are we willing to look at our beliefs and ask ourselves hard questions about how consistent they are? Are we ready to take action beyond just having an opinion? What does that action look like for us in the season of life we’re in? These answers won’t be easy, but they’re worth pursuing. As long as we recognize that it will never be realistic to wait until we’ve achieved some level of perfection to be bold enough to have a voice.