Putting my two girls to bed is a task that usually consists largely of about an hour of me lying on my bed browsing on my phone and periodically yelling at them to put their pajamas on and brush their teeth, and tonight was no different. As usual I was on the Reddit app, scrolling through my feed, when a post from a book recommendation subreddit caught my eye. In honor of President’s Day, one intrepid user had typed up a massive post listing the past 44 Presidents of the United States and, for each, one or more biography recommendations. There was really nothing remarkable about this post, save perhaps its length, but for some reason it really stuck in my craw. For starters, just a few weeks ago (around Martin Luther King Day) I came to the (obvious, I realize, yet long overdue) realization that we have not a single federal holiday devoted to a woman. And to be honest I have half a mind to give my girls a school holiday on Sally Ride’s birthday and tell the school exactly what I’m doing. (It’s May 26th, by the way, which sounds like a perfect playground day to me.) Anyway, this post just kind of irked me for no particular reason, and it seemed like the most sensible thing to do would be to ignore my to-do list and sink full of dishes and respond with my own post of biographies of the First Ladies.
Pants Optional