Honor the women in your family this month

By Alonzo Weston

March 8 is International Women’s Day. It’s a day to celebrate the achievements of women and the progress made towards women’s rights. It also sheds light on ongoing struggles for equality around the world.

I believe this observance starts with the women in your family. There are plenty of famous women to look up to but the women in our families deserve recognition too.

There are single mothers out there raising kids with little help. My daughter Nicole is one of them. Nicole raises my 10-year-old grandson and gives him the best opportunity for success. She bought her house and holds a steady job as a pharmacy technician. I think the world of her. She’s strong and smart.

I remember how my mom and grandmother raised me. Both were strong women. My grandmother bought her own house on short-order cook wages. My mother survived an abusive relationship while living in a rough part of Kansas City. She kept her heart intact and became a well-known and beloved cashier for Katz/Osco drugstores.

When I grew up, many single mothers raised families with little or no assistance.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Inspire Inclusion.”

It involves the inclusion of women and girls in society through promoting creative and artistic talents and designing and building infrastructure meeting the needs of women and girls.

To truly include women means openly embracing their diversity of race, age, ability and faith and how they identify.

As we strive to empower women, we must not forget our boys. They need attention as well as our girls to be better citizens in society. That might include not asking boys to act like girls in the classroom. We have to understand the nature of boys in our schools as well as our girls. Boys are gonna roughhouse and play hard and should not be punished for it.

I say let’s empower all the disenfranchised in our society. Recognizing women is a good start to all equal rights.