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04/09/07
This morning I nearly ran my mini van off the road when I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me: “Don’t vote for Hillary or she will make us all clean up our rooms.” This is the straw that broke this mother’s back. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Hillary Clinton’s public embrace of motherhood has sparked a flurry of attacks on the work of mothers. Obviously, it is Pelosi and Clinton’s impressive professional skills, not their motherhood, that qualified them to break through the marble ceiling. Still, the devaluing of mothers’ work that has quickly become fodder for countless bloggers and journalists is infuriating. As a leadership consultant, I work with business leaders every day. I’m always struck by just how much their work corresponds to the daily work of a mother. Who else but a mother fosters compassion, negotiates conflicts, and teaches communication skills, cooperation, empathy, and decision making? Who else builds human capital for this country? Leadership skills cross over from home to work and work to home. Motherhood and leadership are not antithetical. In fact, a mother of three who is juggling schedules, managing a home, and keeping her children happy and cooperative has a lot in common with a CEO who puts out daily fires while fostering a work environment where each person feels motivated and valued. And yet somehow, even in the era of political correctness, it is still acceptable to reduce mothers to mere nose wipers.
04/09/07
Leslie Bennetts' new book "The Feminine Mistake" has generated a lot of controversy and discussion. I expected to be the last person to defend her, as I was personally offended by Bennetts' overly critical characterization of stay-at-home Moms. She operates with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, but her core message is unmistakably important: A man is not a financial plan. Every woman needs to wake up to this reality. The cost of being caught without a personally-constructed safety net is a stiff penalty. I am not surprised that a book as polarizing as "The Feminine Mistake" has generated a lot of love-it-or-hate-it reactions, but I have been taken aback by the willful financial denial voiced in some of the Amazon.com reader reviews. A woman calling herself Starbaby says....
04/04/07
Some of us who blog here at MomsRising talk over email about whether and how to engage the ongoing "mommy" debates that erupt from time to time. These are always mommy warish in nature, and you know that we forward-thinking, action-oriented, nice moms prefer to say, spread the word on the amazing possibilities for paid family leave in Washington state (see Joan's blog entry two below) than go head to head with people who prefer to stay within the culture of judgment and single-mindedness. My dream is that five years from now, they'll look up from their computer screens to learn that the US has a national policy on paid family leave. And that's just a start.
03/31/07
A recent article in L.A. Parent Magazine ( www.laparent.com ) asked, Is Motherhood Depressing? The article’s title was meant to be provocative – questioning whether the mere act of being a mother – supposedly the world’s most rewarding (and yes, the real oldest) profession, could emotionally debilitate even the most well-balanced woman. In reality, the story was about the difficulties of parenting while dealing with a psychological disorder, profiling one woman’s struggle with clinical depression. It cited a study which suggests that a growing number of women and men are finding that child rearing has sent them into a Prozac dependency, needing daily medication to survive from school drop-off to bedtime and every dirty diaper-, temper tantrum- and homework-induced meltdown in between. My personal belief is whatever it takes to get through the day without blood being shed is, to quote my favorite ex-con Martha Stewart, “a good thing.” My husband recently received very sad news which brought the message home. He learned an acquaintance from college who was married, had kids and was depressed, killed herself and her children while her husband was away serving in Iraq. All this got me thinking about the many parents I know who are not saddled with lifetime depression issues or even survivors of postpartum depression, but who still wonder aloud and often, why they feel their lives as parents have left them so frustrated, sad and often angry. Is motherhood depressing? Maybe it is, yes, but for reasons that we can change.
Dawn's picture
03/28/07
The "Power of ONEsie" campaign is off to a great start—in less than a week, hundreds of MomsRising members have already decorated and sent, or specially purchased online, baby onesies for us to display in Washington State this Thursday in support of paid family leave. Thank you. Let's keep the chain growing! We're building this ONEsie chain to represent the real moms, dads, kids, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who support building a truly family-friendly America, but can't be at state capitals and other events around the nation in person because they are working, caring for family, or going to school. With your help, we're spreading the word and adding to the ONEsie project. As it grows, it will be displayed to put family issues on center stage from Washington State to Washington D.C. We've only just begun...
joan's picture
03/28/07
Breaking news: A Family Leave Insurance bill just passed the Washington State Senate, and now is moving to the State House. MomsRising members in WA are calling their 2 State Representatives and posting what they learn about how their elected officials plan to vote here. The more YES votes we count, the more MOMentum we'll generate to pass this bill. *Ready to post what you've heard in Washington? Just click the blog title above, or click on the "Read full post" link below. Then scroll down to the end of web page--through all of the comments/blog text--to the "Post a Comment" section. Fill in the blanks with your text. Then when you are finished don't forget to click the "Post Comment" button at the very bottom of the page.
Kristin's picture
Baby shirts with hand painted messages to support paid family leave in New York.
03/24/07
Imagine a beautifully presented long chain of decorated baby onesies stretching all around your state capital as a visual representation of the real people who need the policies being debated inside the imposing buildings. Each onesie signifies one person--mother, father, child, grandmother,...
Katie Bethell's picture
03/15/07
Today's New York Times features an important article: "Stop the Presses, Boys! Women claim space on Op-Ed Pages" profiles Catherine Orenstein, a writer and activist who teaches women the techniques of editorial opinion-piece writing. Orenstein says of editorial writing, "It's a teachable form. It's not like writing Hemingway. You show people the basics of a good argument, what constitutes good evidence, what's a news hook, what's the etiquette of a pitch." Many women are never taught these key structures and formulas, yet we need to learn them if our voices are to to be included in media coverage of all the key issues of the day. The Times feature shares enough of Orenstein's tips that you'll learn just from reading this piece.
03/10/07
We're listening hard! We'd love to hear your comments about what you'd like to see on the MomsRising website and in the e-alerts. *To share your ideas, just click the blog title above, or the "Read full post" link below. Then scroll down to the end of the comments/blog text to "Post a Comment."
Kristin's picture
03/10/07
In the last year since starting, the MomsRising membership has gone from 0 to over 120,000 people--and is growing weekly by 500 to 4,000 members lately. This membership growth is mainly due to friends telling friends about MomsRising—i.e. you. Working together, we are truly building a powerful...
Kristin's picture

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