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12/01/06
Buried on page 10 of my morning newspaper was a brief article stating that the Labor Department is seeking public comment about the Family and Medical Leave Act, the federal law that grants eligible workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to care for a newborn or sick family member, or because the worker herself has a serious health condition. My MomsRising radar was immediately activated! It is not immediately clear what the Bush administration has planned, but we should create an action to support the FMLA. As one of two main federal laws that grants any kind of family and medical leave, we need to speak up to support not only the FMLA but to insist on even stronger family leave laws.
11/29/06
At the end of November 2006, the hopes and dreams of women, especially mothers, to obtain a job with dignity and respect in Pennsylvania, died on the steps of the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as a result of complete, deliberate and intentional neglect by the committee chairmen of the Senate Labor and Industry Committee and the House Judiciary Committee who held the fate of SB440 and HB352 in their hands.
11/22/06
We have exciting news on this front: You all are amazing! Last week in response to news that a ticket agent forced a mother off a Freedom Air flight run by Delta Air Lines for breastfeeding on-board, MomsRising put up a petition and you responded (and can still respond!). In less than a week the petition gathered over 20,000 signatures telling Delta Air Lines that breastfeeding mothers should be supported, as well as supporting the Breastfeeding Promotion Act before Congress. Over 20,000 signatures! Emails and calls from MomsRising members, as well as regular updates about the high number of petition signatures, pushed both Delta and Freedom Airlines to issue statements underscoring their commitment to allowing women to breastfeed onboard planes. Freedom Air also noted that the incident would serve as a training opportunity for all employees.
Kristin's picture
11/22/06
I like to call the season from now until the end of the year, “The Months of Eating Dangerously.” In the next forty plus days, we will all be celebrating Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza and New Year’s. These are all wonderful holidays where we gather with friends and loved ones to rejoice in our family traditions and important religious observances. Each holiday is rich with meaning and also with rich food. We are faced with an onslaught of holiday eating. There are office parties, school parties, holiday open houses, snuggling up in front of the fireplace drinking the hot chocolate and eating the sugar cookies that were left for Santa. With all the hams, turkeys, latkes, egg nog and even the ubiquitous fruitcake, it’s no wonder the average person gains five to ten pounds over the holidays. This time of year is rough. My daughters have barely recovered from the Tootsie Pop and Hershey Kiss induced coma brought on by Halloween and we’re already making plans for the upcoming foodapolooza.
Dawn's picture
11/20/06
In the wake of the Delta Airlines anti-nursing discrimination incident, I was very unhappy to learn today that we are about to lose one of our only public images of a nursing mother. The Sacagawea coin is going to be retired next year and replaced by conventional designs of U. S. Presidents. Does anyone else share my feeling that losing the Sacagawea dollar is a real shame--a cultural loss that we should raise a ruckus to defend?
11/17/06
While the MomsRising discussion boards are filling with comments about the recent assault on airplane breastfeeding. Amy at Mojo Mom has logged a must-read post about how truly radical an act breastfeeding is. This new event reminded me of something I'd written about in the past, the Starbucks nursing shame.
11/16/06
Can you believe a woman was recently kicked off a Delta airlines flight for discreetly breastfeeding her child!? Please share your own breastfeeding tales of triumph and embarrassment here (*Click the blog title above or "Read full post" link below, then scroll down to the end of the blog text and Post a Comment)! And don't forget to sign the petition to tell Delta Airlines to get a clue and be supportive of breastfeeding mothers, as well as tell Congress it’s time to pass the Breastfeeding Promotion Act, which amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding mothers.
Kristin's picture
11/11/06
When Judith Warner's book Perfect Madness reached the shelves a year or so back, it wasn't immediately clear that she'd become a forceful political advocate for mothers. Yes, the book did end with a slew of policy proposals. The majority of the pages offered cultural analysis, though, and more often than not, Warner seemed to tread perilously close to blaming mothers--affluent, over achieving, hyper-perfectionist mothers, the prime focus of the book--for the malaise upon us. The book's political ending was nice, but it felt tacked on. How, after all, would improved access to quality daycare really make life easier for the mom committed to hand painting paper plates for her child's birthday party? The blogosphere, especially, took aim. The lack of online word limits allowed an almost limitless analysis of Perfect Madness, and most bloggers were relentlessly critical of the book.
11/08/06
"Yard sign! No punch backs!" is a common refrain yelled with joyful exuberance from my backseat these days. My two children, ages ten and seven, have taken politics to a new, uncharted level. They've picked their favorite political yard signs and made a variation on the "Slug Bug" game--the game where you pick a VW bug car of a certain color and whoever sees it first gets to softly punch the person next to them.
Kristin's picture
10/25/06
On Monday, Kiki delivered your 6,100-name petition all over Harrisburg; visited dozens of legislative offices; spread the word to anyone who would listen about SB 440 and HB 352; AND spoke at a conference of the Pennsylvania Women's Commission! Whew. Her report is so amazing, and awesome, I am sharing with you the whole, wonderful thing... Good Morning, I am still recovering from my trip to Harrisburg on Monday, October 23rd. Thus my delay in getting my report out to you. My dear friend and colleague Debbi accompanied me on this trip. She had never been involved in any political activity so this was quite an eye opening experience for her.

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