muffmacguff

Dear Mom:

Last night, against my better judgment, I went to see a midnight show of Sex and the City 2: The Squeaquel. Everything you’ve read about it is accurate and predictable, from the nauseating conspicuous consumption to the casual dismissal of Muslim self-determinism. Other people have written better on the subjects all over the internet, and I’m sure there will be excellent commentary on it here as the movie is released wider. I wanted to discuss the movie’s Miranda storyline, and its relation to my you, my mother (slight spoilers from the first half of the movie ahead).

If you don’t know, Miranda is a hard-working attorney who is married and has a son. I don’t recall off the top of my head what kind of law she practices, and not-shockingly wikipedia makes no mention of it. You are an attorney, and specifically one who works for Legal Aid in New York – my mom is a public defender, primarily of children in the appellate system. Recently she and other attorneys fought on behalf of a transgender woman within the foster system fighting to get her transition surgery and hormones covered by her state-run healthcare (I may be oversimplifying or misunderstanding the issues at play – I’m not a lawyer, and I’m working from secondhand information).

As anyone can imagine, your job entails very long hours and hard, aggravating, occasionally defeating work. When I was younger, and you were less advanced within your organization, it ...