“What was it like having Ann Richards as a mother?” People always ask me this question. They’ll come up to me and recite a favorite line from her keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention—“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, she just did it backward and in high heels!”)—or reminisce about the day she became the first woman elected governor of Texas.

Here’s my answer: Being Ann Richards’s daughter was both exhilarating and daunting. My mom was demanding of herself and everyone around her, and she knew that women only got what they fought for—nothing more, nothing less. She insisted on hard work, and a lot of it.

This Mother’s Day I’m thinking even more than usual about what my mom would have to say about the world today. (One of my great regrets: that she died before having a chance to bring her wit to Twitter!) I know she would have loved that, with the last gasps of the patriarchy in full throttle, women of every age and background are standing with each other, demanding nothing less than full equality. As someone who spent her life making sure women made progress—economic, political, cultural—I know Mom would be at the ramparts with us: knitting her pussy hat, helping women running for office, marveling and rejoicing at the explosion of activism across the globe.

Mom used to remind us: ”When my grandmother was a girl, the only people who couldn’t vote under Texas law were ‘idiots, imbeciles, the insane, and women.’” Yet two generations later, Mom was elected governor of Texas. She got there by sheer determination, and she wasn’t about to let anyone else half-step it in their own life. When my children were born, Mom made it clear she wasn’t the “baking cookies kind of grandmother.” Instead, she always asked each child if they were the smartest one in class. If they said no, she wanted to know why not.

Mom saw so many changes in her lifetime. In particular, she was overjoyed by the passage of Title IX, which gave girls the opportunity to play competitive sports. Watching her granddaughter Hannah pitch through a tough inning of softball or her granddaughter Lily coxswain for the rowing team was a marvel. Mom also cherished her time at University of Texas Lady Longhorns basketball games, where she cheered loudly with her friend Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. If you closed your eyes, you might have mistaken the two of them for teenagers.

But of all the issues Mom cared about, women’s ability to control their body and make their own decisions about childbearing was number one. Like every mother I know, Ann Richards found it unconscionable that her daughters, much less her granddaughters, might have fewer rights than she did—and she was not about to let that happen. She often opined about politicians’ obsession with what was going on in other people’s bedrooms. It was no surprise that her first full-time campaign job was for Sarah Weddington, who (at 26) had successfully argued Roe v. Wade before running for state legislature.

Mom was 47 when she decided to run herself. After she won, she became adamant that women shouldn’t wait for an invitation or until they had the perfect résumé. She’d say, “Cecile, this is the only life you have. There aren’t any do-overs. So whatever new chance comes your way, jump at it.”

When I got a call inviting me to interview for the job as president of Planned Parenthood, I almost didn’t go to the interview. I did what any grown woman would do: I called my mother. When I listed all the reasons I wasn’t qualified, she wasn’t having it. “Planned Parenthood is the most important women’s health care organization in the country—how exciting!” she said. “If you don’t try for this, you’ll regret it forever.”

This month, when I left Planned Parenthood after 12 years as president, I was more grateful than ever to Mom for believing in me even more than I believed in myself.

To me, this is the theme of Mother’s Day. Over the last year and a half, I’ve met mothers and daughters who are organizing together, going to town halls together, speaking out together, and doing things they never could have imagined doing before. There are the daughters I’ve met on book tour, who proudly ask me to sign a copy of Make Trouble for their troublemaking mother. The sheer determination of women across America to come together, support each other, run for office, and declare #TimesUp is nothing short of historic. I’m sorry Mom didn’t live to see this moment, and be part of it. But I think of her daily, and how she helped deliver us to to this moment.

So today I hope mothers and daughters everywhere will take a page from Ann Richards’ book. When someone asked what she would have done if she’d had a second term as governor, she said, “I would have raised more hell.”

These are words to live by.

Cecile Richards is the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She is also the author of the New York Times best-seller Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead (Touchstone), on sale now.

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