Make it Missoula: Missoula Moms Test Senator Tester: Concerns of Parents Heard

When I first received the email from Mamalode to join a group of Missoula moms and staff members to meet with Senator Jon Tester, I hesitated. Most of my life, I have remained on the passive side of anything contentious. I recognized early in life that if you want to deflect confrontation, the two subjects to avoid are politics and religion.

I was raised in a very conservative, Catholic household in Bozeman. When I came to U of M for college, I realized that Missoula had a different flavor. A taste of many different opinions and faiths. I liked it immediately, having had years of internal conflict between my own opinions and the opinions that others in my community thought I should have…

With this in mind, I readily joined the group at the Florence Hotel, where Senator Tester was running behind because of an emergency landing in Billings on his flight to Missoula. He bounced into the room, his presence and energy were immediately palpable as he described his adventures in travel.

The purpose of the meeting was to hear the concerns and voices, from a mother’s point of view, of important-to-mom issues. Believe me, we had plenty.