As I mentioned in the Game Changers interview last week, there are several issues of import to the Latino community that are top of mind in the blogosphere and social media including topics like the economy, health care, education and immigration.  I am hopeful for a robust discussion on Monday that will touch on these topics and more.  This event has been organized in partnership with LATISM, the national Latino organization that I helped to form in 2009- 2010.   As a founding board member of LATISM, I must say that it is exciting to see it continue to grow and work to make a difference on behalf of the Latino community.  The only thing that I can think of being more exciting is seeing one of these Latinas in the White House or in another type of elected office in the years to come.  I look forward to sharing further news after Monday’s meeting.

The other ladies that have been invited to participate in the briefing include:

Mirna Arce http://AhorrosConCupones.com
Rachel Armas http://www.theartmuse.net
Veronica Arreola http://www.vivalafeminista.com
Caryn Bailey http://rockinmama.net
Elisa Batista http://www.momsrising.org
Jeannette Kaplun http://todobebe.com
Elizabeth Cerezo http://thoughtsofamommy.net
Jessie Nuez http://www.hechoparamama.com
Brenda Cisneros-Dewong http://www.mejorandomihogar.com
Yvonne Condes http://momsla.com // http://yvonneinla.com
Janice Correa http://mamistimeout.com
Marta Maria Darby http://mybigfatcubanfamily.com
Luciana Gabriela Davidzon de Scher http://www.latinfoodlovers.com
Laura de Ona http://SolyPimienta.com
Julie Diaz Asper http://blog.gigcoin.com
Melanie Edwards http://www.modernmami.com
Ana L. Flores http://spanglishbaby.com
Monique Frausto http://BlogsbyLatinas.com
Teresa Garza http://checalamovie.net
Dariela Cruz-Gillespie http://www.mamitalks.com
Carolyn Gonzalez http://www.caroincarolina.com
Maura Hernandez http://theothersideofthetortilla.com
Eugenia Hurtado http://www.thewiselatinaclub.com
Jennifer Hutcheson http://mami2mommy.com
Denisse Icaza http://ahorrosparamama.com
Nadia Jones http://www.justicejonesie.com/blog
Roraima Lassanske http://www.mamacontemporanea.com
Tracy Lopez http://latinaish.com
Yolanda Machado http://sassymamainla.com
Adriana Maestas http://latinopoliticsblog.com // http://politic365.com
Yvette Marquez http://www.muybuenocookbook.com
Silvia Martinez http://www.mamalatinatips.com
Yolanda Mason http://lasblogueras.com
Ruby Wright http://www.growingbilingual.com
Blanca Stella Mejia http://micaminar.com
Melyssa Mendoza http://changeyourliferideabike.blogspot.com
Raquel Negrón http://thedigitallatina.com
Monica Olivera http://www.MommyMaestra.com
Carmen Ordoñez http://www.vivafashionblog.com
Monica Vila http://www.TheOnlineMom.com
Maegan Ortiz http://vivirlatino.com
Helena Osorio-Zavala http://pinkguayoyo.com
Maria Jose Ovalle http://www.verybusymamablog.com
Chantilly Patiño http://www.biculturalmom.com
Angelica Perez http://www.newlatina.net
Mariana Perez http://thedomesticbuzz.com
Carolina Pichardo http://www.youngurbanmoms.com
Lynn Ponder http://webcitygirls.com
Nicole Presley http://presleyspantry.com
Jeannette Quiñones http://www.sazonboricua.com
Lisa Quinones Fontanez http://www.autismwonderland.com
Flor de Maria Rivera http://flordemariafashion.com
Migdalia Rivera http://latinaonamission.com
Vianney Rodriguez http://sweetlifebake.com
Roxana Soto Romero http://www.spanglishbaby.com
Ericka Sanchez http://nibblesandfeasts.com
Mercedes Sanchez http://bechicmag.com/magazine
Dania Santana Henriquez http://www.lafamiliacool.com
Alejandra Suarez http://www.brandlateen.com
Eliana Tardio Hurtado http://www.elianatardio.com
Laura Tellado http://holdinoutforahero.org
Laura Termini http://www.chicanol.com
Maybelline Valenti http://www.naturalmentemama.com
Carrie Ferguson Weir http://tikitikiblog.com
Ruby Wright http://www.growingupblackxican.com

There are many things we are thankful for, like the fact that insurance companies can’t kick sick kids off coverage and people can stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26. Obamacare is making it easier and more affordable for all of us to get the health care we need, when we need it – and there is still more to come!

Despite all of this progress, Obamacare is facing a big test this summer. There is a real threat that Obamacare could be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.  If so, millions of Americans stand to lose a lot – affordable coverage, accessible, quality care and so much more.

We need your help NOW to share the personal impact of this important law. We are going to tell the Supreme court, “Don’t Deny Us.” Send a photo of you, your family or a loved one who has been impacted by Obamacare to inform@cohealthinitiative.org.  We encourage you to include a sign that says “Don’t Deny Me” or another message representing how Obamacare has helped you.  Check out the sample photo at right – isn’t she adorable?

We are going to incorporate all of the photos into a video that we will be sharing online in late May, early June. (We also want to give a hat tip to our inspiration for this project, the Courage Campaign’s “Don’t Divorce Us” video in 2008/2009.)

Please submit your photos today to inform@cohealthinitiative.org.

“Russian Women are no longer the best kept secret of the cold war” notes the website of Encounters International, the mail-order bride company that is lobbying hard for the passage of the scary Republican version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) — the version that passed the House of Representatives earlier this week. An actual reauthorization of VAWA passed in the Senate last month by a 68 – 31 margin, in a rare show of bipartisanship.

As I previously reported, the VAWA reauthorization provides Republicans with a unique opportunity to advance a war on two fronts (fighting women and immigrants), and they’re taking it. One would think that some problems—like domestic violence—are just too universal a struggle to fall prey to politics. Sadly, the Republicans’ handling of the Violence Against Women Act proves that’s not the case.

Incredibly, rather than protecting all people from abuse, they are doing the bidding of Encounters International and other “men’s groups” who are lobbying hard for the Republican VAWA bill. Why do these groups care? They’re lobbying for provisions that empower abusers and make it harder for victims of domestic violence to leave an abusive situation. See, immigration status and the fear of deportation give abusers just another tool to wield against their victims, and that much more leverage to make them stay.

As Mony Ruiz-Velasco, National Immigrant Justice Center’s director of legal services, told the Daily Beast:

“I’ve never had a case where the abuser did not use … immigration status as a tool.”

They tell women that going to the police means deportation and separation from their children. And rather than recognizing their role in this problem and working to correct it, the mail order bride industry is actually lobbying Congress to give abusers more power and more control.

As Rachel Maddow explained in her expose Wednesday night:

One of the worrying aspects of the whole mail order bride phenomenon – not just now, but always – is that a woman who immigrates to the United States using a service like this can end up dependent for her immigration status in this country on the American man to whom she has just been married for a fee. And if that American man starts beating her up, an immigrant woman who came to America under these circumstances can kind of be trapped. I mean, you don’t want her to stay with the abusive guy who bought her hand in marriage on the internet. But if she leaves the abusive American husband, she also may lose the marriage tie that was making it legal for her to be here, and she would therefore get deported.

So that’s the choice – right, stay with the man who was beating you…or get deported.

House Republicans claim that they are trying to protect women, but their group is opposed by all the major national, state, and local domestic violence groups. The only groups that are gung-ho about the Republican version of VAWA are really, really sketchy.

From the Huffington Post:

The advocacy group, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, or SAVE, has been lobbying the House of Representatives to include a “reform to curb VAWA immigration fraud” in its version of the bill. The GOP version of the bill does that by removing confidentiality protections for immigrant victims of abuse and forcing them to tell their alleged abusive husbands that they’re applying for protected immigrant status. It also removes an avenue through whih immigrant victims can achieve permanent citizenship.

An official of SAVE has a major financial interest in reducing immigrant protections: Its treasurer, Natasha Spivack, started international “marriage service” Encounters International in 1993 with the aim of arranging marriages between U.S. men and Russian women. “The Woman Of Your Dreams Just May Have A Russian Accent,” states the company’s website.

One of the Russian brides matched by Encounters International sued the firm, claiming that she was beaten by her American husband, that the company failed to properly screen candidates and neglected to tell her about a law allowing immigrants to escape abusive marriages without fear of automatic deportation. A jury decided in favor of the Russian bride and awarded her $434,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The case was affirmed upon appeal.

And so on. Back in February, when the Senate was first taking up VAWA, a letter was sent from a group called the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.

“We, the undersigned, representing millions of Americans nationwide, are writing today to oppose the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This nice-sounding bill is deceitful because it destroys the family by obscuring real violence in order to promote the feminist agenda,” the letter read.

Please note that “We, the undersigned” from the Concerned WOMEN for America Legislative Action Committee comprises mostly men. Of the twenty-five people who signed the letter, sixteen are male.

In an exchange between Representative Sandy Adams (R), who introduced the bill in the House, and Representative John Conyers on the House floor Wednesday, Conyers asks “Who supports the Republican version of the bill?”

Representative Sandy Adams can only respond with “Well, Mr. Conyers, I can say I do. And I know that we have a list of them…”

Responds Conyers, adequately:

I ask who’s supporting the Republican measure, and you say ‘I am.’ Well, I’m glad to know that. And I think that just about tells everybody where the logic and the support for this bill is – there is none.

Unless, of course, your dating profile is: Republican, male, single, seeking Russian bride

Although the occasional abuse made her son reticent, he still wanted to visit and play with his friend.  His mother was concerned because this was one of very few friends Aiden had and she and the boy’s mother were also friends.

What to do?

To understand how to respond to bullying we must first understand its motivations.  Bullying is an attempt to exert social power.  Bullying is not the result of the bully’s lack of understanding about right and wrong, or their lack of empathy.  Quite often a bully is conflicted between their desire for power and their empathy.  It’s not that a bully doesn’t understand or feel empathy, it’s just that their desire for social power is stronger.

Social power is increased when a child shows disregard for the opinions of adults.  Grade school children are uncertain about who they are, and there is nothing cooler to their peers than a child who shows that he not only doesn’t need the approval of adults but is unafraid of their opinions or outrage.

Consequently, there are generally two effective approaches to handling bullying.  One is to consequence the bully and the other is to coach the bullied.  The biggest mistake adults make is to intervene by lecturing the bully or otherwise telling him how his or her actions are wrong, bad, shameful or disapproved of.  Berating or lecturing the bully in front of his peers is particularly ineffective as is provides a perfect platform for the bully to display social status and power.

So what to do with Aiden and Noah?

I suggested the mom start by coaching her son in effective ways to handle the situation.  Ask him to look out for the first signs of the bullying and when he sees it going that way he should say to his friend, “I don’t want you hitting me.  If you hit me I won’t play with you.”  Then if his friend does hit him, he should immediately tell the adult who’s at the house that he wants to go home or he wants his friend taken home.

Sara asked me if she should sit Noah down and tell him that she knows about the bullying and that it isn’t okay and I told her no.

There are two problems with Sara, not Aiden, confronting Noah about his bullying.  First, it undermines the power of Aiden by demonstrating that he must rely on his mom’s power and can’t assert his own and it denies him the opportunity to assert that power himself.  Second, it gives status to Noah’s actions by allowing him to flaunt his opposition to Aiden’s mom’s wishes and approval, inadvertently increasing Noah’s social power.

Then Sara asked me if she should talk to Noah’s mom and have her talk to Noah about his behavior.  My answer was no.  Again this will increase Noah’s status and show Aiden’s lack of power and status.  If she does talk with Noah’s mom it should be to ask for her support of Aiden as he negotiates this problem while specifically asking her not to talk to her son.

This way Aiden can exercise the power of following through with what he said he would do.  When Aiden comes to either adult he should be coached to say simply, “I want to go home now” or “I need you to take Noah home now”.  And the adults should honor his request immediately without questioning him or reproaching Noah.  This gives Aiden a tool to exert his own social power and to take away social power from Noah.

The other effective approach to bullying is hard to do in this situation since the boys are always playing alone when it happens.  However, in other situations I would advise the adults to stay close and within eyeshot when possible and intervene with an immediate action consequence that lowers social power.  Telling the bully to take a break for five minutes away from other children, without discussing with them why, can be a good way to do this.  Once the adult says why, or what the bully did was wrong, they inadvertently increase the status of the bully.

My wife told me about a teacher she had as a child who insisting that any child he caught bullying wear a big pink bow for the rest of the day.  While I’d never recommend this kind of shaming, her teacher clearly understood the root cause of bullying and attempted to counter it with something that diminished social power and status.

As we move forward in our attempt to eliminate the growing epidemic of bullying it’s essential that we respond with more than simple outrage and moralizing for the bully and empathy for the bullied.  Our responses must consider why it’s happening and which actions will undermine, or strengthen, the true motivations for it.

Joe Newman is a Behavior Consultant and the author of Raising Lions

Americans, or at least the chattering class, have gotten all riled up about motherhood twice in the past few weeks.

First, there was the kerfuffle between Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen and Ann Romney about whether Mrs. Romney, a stay-at-home mother, could truly understand the plight of working Moms enough to advise her husband on the subject. Instead of turning into a real debate about the struggles of parenting and working, it turned into a question of whether the left really hates stay-at-home Moms.

Then last week, thousands of people were atwitter about how long a mother should breastfeed her child. Not only is it a completely personal decision that not has no universal answer, it also very much depends on whether a working mom can take breaks at work to pump while she is away from her baby — a point that was decidedly missing from Time magazine’s coverage.

While most people were distracted by these side shows about privileged moms who have real options to take time away from work for their children, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, convened a hearing, “Beyond Mother’s Day: Helping the Middle Class Balance Work and Family,” to shine a light on the problems faced by the overwhelming majority of mothers in the United States.

The fact is, working mothers, or at least those with limited education and lower-end jobs, have almost no employee benefits that allow time away from work when their children are sick or even when they give birth. Many of these moms have to work — with more than 6 out of 10 families relying on women to bring in at least one-quarter of the family income.

This disparity between highly-educated and economically secure mothers and those with less education and income is striking, as I testified at the hearing, pointing out that college-educated workers are far more likely to have access to paid maternity leave than workers with a high school degree or less.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a federal law passed in 1978, requires employers to offer equal benefits to all workers, including pregnant women. This means that if an employer offers paid sick days or paid short-term disability benefits, the law allows women to use these benefits for pregnancy-related illnesses or for time during child birth and recovery.

The law does not, however, affirmatively require employers to allow their workers paid time off, or any time off at all, for child birth if other workers don’t have the right to take time off for illnesses or injuries.

For college-educated women, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act still has made a big difference because many employers offer paid short-term disability insurance and paid sick days to attract and retain high-end employees. The law effectively requires those benefits be made available for pregnancy and child birth; thus, providing many college-educated women back-door access to paid maternity leave.

According to an analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau, from 1961 to 1965, only 14 percent of college-educated women workers received paid leave before or after the birth of their first child. The number jumped to 59 percent in the immediate period after passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and held at 66 percent in 2008.

From the Census Bureau report, "Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers: 1961-2008"

Compare that with less-educated workers: The law has made little difference to them because they are less likely to have access to paid sick days or paid short-term disability. For workers with less than a high school degree, access to paid leave after child birth remained nearly constant from 1961 to 2008 at about 18 percent — yes, 18 percent — less than one for every four college-educated workers with paid maternity leave.

Congress tried to fix this disparity in 1993 when it passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, requiring employers to provide workers with 12-weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to care for a new baby or seriously ill family member, or to recover from one’s own serious illness. But only about half of all American workers qualify for this leave.

Senator Harkin and his colleagues on the committee did not have to rely on just these numbers to illustrate the inequality. They had witnesses — Kimberly Ortiz and me.

Kimberly testified that she grew up in poverty and was determined to escape it. She went to work for a food vendor at the Statue of Liberty before having children and put in long hours, rising to Assistant Manager. But when her two boys arrived, she soon faced an unforgiving and unrelenting employer: no paid time off when her first child was born, a disciplinary write-up for taking an unpaid sick day when her son was in the emergency room, and an ever-changing schedule that made lining up child care extremely challenging.

Me: I grew up in the middle class. My parents put a second-mortgage on their home to put me through college. I took out loans and received scholarships to put myself through graduate school and law school. The end result is that today I’m a highly-educated professional worker. When my first child was born, I received 4-months of time off with full pay. When my second child was hospitalized at 6 months old, I took paid sick days to sit by his bed side. And when my children get unexpectedly ill or need to go to the doctor’s, I move my schedule around — and sometimes call my boss at the last minute to say I’m not coming in, all with knowledge that I will not be disciplined for doing so.

The real debate we should be having isn’t whether breastfeeding or stay-at-home mothering is good or bad for parents and children. We should be talking about public policies that virtually ignore less-educated workers in their quest for the same family-friendly benefits provided to professional parents.

How can we expect our children to thrive if their parents are penalized when their children are ill?

Follow Ann on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ann_OLeary

“Women often serve as caregivers for their families, putting the needs of their spouses, partners, children, and parents before their own. As a result, women’s health and well-being becomes secondary. As a community, we have a responsibility to support the important women we know and do everything we can to help them take steps for longer, healthier, and happier lives.” -Womenshealth.gov

For Wellness Wednesday, we’re focusing on taking charge of your health and finding out new ways the Affordable Care Act can empower you to make the best health decisions for you and your family. Here are 10 posts with resources, advice, and news about Women’s Health and the Affordable Care Act from the MomsRising blog:

Ask an Expert: Women, Health Reform, and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative by Ashley Wheeland

I will NOT be denied: Protect women’s health care! by Leni Preston

HERVotes Blog Carnival: What Health Care Reform Means to Women by Cindy Pearson

Healthcare Reform and Breastfeeding by Saray Hill, IBCLC

5 Ways Health Reform Supports Women by Erin Armstrong

Wellness Wednesday: Women and Heart Disease by Claire Moshenberg

It’s in the Law: Breaking Down What’s In It For You in the New Health Care Law by Thao Nguyen

How Restrictions on Health Care Funding Affect Low-Income Women’s Access to Care by Amanda Dennis

Women’s Health, Worth Fighting For by Avis Jones-Deweever

Top 5 Tips for Working and Breastfeeding by Bettina Forbes

TIME raised a ruckus recently with a profile of “attachment parenting” guru Dr. Bill Sears, highlighted by a cover photo of a mother breastfeeding her three-year-old son, according to the Huffington Post. Healthy Child believes breast is best—especially for the first year, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics—and welcomes the discussion these photographs have incited (although not the flaming, that’s just plain mean). Some additional information to add to the chatter: African Americans have the lowest breastfeeding rates, yet the community is hit hardest by health problems that breastfeeding protects against.

Our newest Mom on a Mission has set out to change these statistics.

Victory for Safer Cosmetics

Thanks to an amazingly vocal community, which sent thousands of letters, petitions, tweets and Facebook posts on the subject, the Safe Cosmetics Bill achieved a major victory last week, as Congress held the first hearing on cosmetics safety in 30 years and decided not to short-circuit it by adding it to a FDA-related bill, according to ABC News.  However, the innocently-named “Cosmetic Safety Amendment Act of 2012,” written by the Personal Care Products Council, was recently introduced and would allow decisions about ingredient safety made by the industry-funded Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel binding to the FDA, according to the Breast Cancer Fund’s Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

If you need a reminder of what’s at stake, read this beautiful Mother’s Day blogpost by Lisa Archer, with the Safe Cosmetics Campaign and be sure to sign the action alert supporting meaningful reform of the cosmetics industry.

March for Safer Chemicals

If we can do it for cosmetics, why not for chemicals in general? There are 80,000 chemicals registered for use in commerce—not one of them has been tested for children’s safety. That’s why motivated moms—including Healthy Child’s representative, mom blogger Christy Funk—are heading to Washington, D.C. on May 22nd to march with Safer Chemicals Healthy Families in support of a long-awaited overhaul of the woefully outdated federal law, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Join us!

Flame Retardants’ Smokey History

The Chicago Tribune wrapped up its four-part series on flame retardants with a must-see video that it teased with the following statement, “The average American baby is born with 10 fingers, 10 toes and the highest recorded levels of flame retardants among infants in the world. The toxic chemicals are present in nearly every home, packed into couches, chairs and many other products. Two powerful industries — Big Tobacco and chemical manufacturers — waged deceptive campaigns that led to the proliferation of these chemicals, which don’t even work as promised.” Our feelings exactly. Join Healthy Child in our support of a petition by our Parent Ambassador Sara Snow to Graco to phase out these toxic chemicals from baby products!

BPA Linked to Breast Cancer

For years advocates have warned about studies of mice that found links between BPA and breast cancer. A new study of monkeys published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and reported by the Wichita Eagle found similar results—leading researchers to conclude that the chemical is a risk factor for breast cancer in humans.

Healthy Child Makes Celeb News

Yes, Us Weekly is a guilty pleasure—and not exactly news—but we can’t resist the opportunity to toot our own horn when we recently found a tweet from Vanessa Lachey quoted in its pages: “’This past weekend I discovered these two AMAZING books! Let’s learn together!’ she tweeted April 17 with a pic of Breastfeeding Made Simple and Healthy Child, Healthy World.” Thanks @VanessaLachey!

You see, my own daughter survived the Massacre at Va Tech just over five years ago after being shot twice in the back of her head. A miracle, really, when eleven of her classmates were killed along with so many innocent lives that day – a total of 33 counting the gunman. Because the shooter’s mental health records were not in the system to disqualify him from purchasing the lethal firearms and high capacity magazines he used in the massacre, he was able to wreak devastation on so many families.

It’s hard to even imagine the pain of losing a child. It’s possibly even harder to wrap your brain around the fact that if our background check system worked properly, the mothers of those 33 victims would have been celebrating this recent Mother’s Day and many more to come. Instead, these mothers will suffer agonizing emotions for the rest of their lives because a dangerously mentally ill person was able to get his hands on a gun.

Can you even comprehend what it’s like to know that your child died needlessly because as a society we allow our elected officials to place more value on pandering to the gun lobby (which opposes any and all attempts to improve background checks) than on our children’s lives? We have the means to do better, but we are silent, giving the impression that we condone the gun lobby’s violent vision for America. We should be mortified and ashamed that we, many of us mothers, allow this to happen.

Incredibly, 5,740 children and teens were killed by guns in the two years following the Va Tech tragedy according to the Children’s Defense Fund report “Protect Children Not Guns 2012.” As a mother who almost lost my own daughter to gun violence, I plead with mothers across America – stand up for the mothers whose lives are irrevocably altered because their son or daughter has been killed by a dangerous person with easy access to firearms. We can and we must do better in this country to protect the lives of our children.

As we approached the visually painful 18-foot steel fence in the Sabal Palm Sanctuary section of the border, I pulled up a jacket over my chest as the border patrol agent was peeking into our vehicle. I was pumping in the backseat, with my battery-powered Medela pump making that familiar ‘whish-whish’ sound. My nerves calmed once the border patrol agent let us pass without questioning what the heck I was doing attached to that machine.

As a new mom to a 9-month-old and a new Executive Director for a national reproductive justice organization, I find myself in precarious situations when on work travel. Do I bring my son? Can I find childcare? If not, who will care for my child while I am away? Where will I pump? Where do I store the milk? The quandary leaves me scrambling for resources that range from the kindness of friends, strangers and colleagues, to extra cash to cover overtime childcare costs.

Both my partner and I have careers that require a high percentage of travel, leading to a decision to either pump or breastfeed on the road. Since I started my new role in mid-October, fresh off the return from parental leave, I have traveled 21 times to seven cities ranging from Washington, DC to Oakland, California. My son has joined me on a dozen of those trips; some have been quite exciting (White House Holiday Party where, at 4 months old, he was held by the President and First Lady) and others a unique experience (staying at a Chinese-only speaking day care in the Bay Area with a friend’s son for two days).

At one meeting that provided on-site childcare, my child rotated to almost every lap of each of my colleagues, often chiming in the dialogue with a gurgle or a defiant ‘bah bah bah’. I’ve nursed on trains, planes and automobiles….one time, performing acrobatic-like maneuvers to wiggle out of a back zippered dress on a shuttle flight in order to position my son to my breast, all while attempting to be “discrete”. I felt the stares of men in suits on that typically infant-free business flight from New York to Washington, DC. Despite the endless stories and struggles of traveling with my infant, I have felt very empowered that, as a new mom, I could ‘juggle it all’–a career I love and am passionate about, a positive and fulfilling personal life, and attempt at being the best parent I could to my precious little baby. But this is not without the anxiety and difficult decision-making that put me at odds with my independent style; I’ve had to plead for help and support in ways I have never done before.

In all the recent debate about attachment parenting, feminism and ‘extended’ nursing, including a New York Times ‘Room for Debate’ feature and a provocative Time magazine cover article, no one talks about the flip side of being a nursing working mama….pumping. During the daily grind, I have to figure out ways to squeeze in three pump sessions a day (or more if traveling without my son), often excusing myself from meetings to seek a private refuge and attach myself to that darn pump. In addition to pumping in the back seat of a car at the Texas-Mexico border, I’ve pumped at countless random locations, including the U.S. Capitol, bathrooms at bars, funder’s offices, empty conference rooms, cramped Amtrak and airplane restrooms, closets, hotel rooms, and the ladies room at a sports arena during a Miami Heat basketball game.

With a horrific gasp, I’ve spilled milk on my office carpet, a hotel bed and a conference room table. While on the pump, I’ve practiced speeches, joined conference calls, responded to emails or looked at photos of my baby (I am told it is supposed to help the ‘let down’….it doesn’t for me). And speaking of ‘let down’, how about the race to work with your heavy breastpump bag in tow (and its serpent-like tubing parts), getting the pumps in throughout the day, and the rush home to see your baby and find out what you pumped is just not enough for the next day. My partner would be the bearer of good or bad news, as he applied his biomedical engineering degree to measure the liquid gold to the milligram. Yes, pumping is the very un-glamorous side of the decision to breastfeed.

But it comes with the territory and along with the decision to breastfeed (or not), it should be supported. In all the debate about breastfeeding, I feel that it is a personal choice that may or may not work for all mothers; however, it is critical that as a society, we have the policies and infrastructure in place to support those decisions. We should not be relegated to a bathroom or closet because society has not deemed it critical to create private nursing or pumping spaces in public locations. We should not have to feel the burning judgmental stares because we decide to breastfeed on a plane, or anywhere in public. We should not have to hear the banter of folks who are uncomfortable with the idea of mothers continuing to nurse when children are ‘too old’.

We should not have to hear the denigration of mothers who are unable or uninterested in nursing at all. On this mama’s day, we- as a society- need to respect and support the decisions that women and families make when raising their children. We also need to serve as advocates for change at the political and societal level so that the U.S. is no longer one of the lowest-scoring industrialized countries to be a mom, with a dismal breastfeeding policy score of ‘poor’ and the only developed country to not guarantee paid parental leave. Until then, I will continue to keep track of my random nursing and pumping adventures, hoping for one day to turn this randomness into acceptance.

This doesn’t, however, make me a “soccer mom,” a term political commentators regularly use to define me–and tens of millions of other moms.

Why do I so dislike being labeled as a “soccer mom” ?

The very idea of soccer mom, when used in a political context, conjures up an image of a mom standing off on the sidelines of an important game. That’s misleading. Modern moms are most definitely in the game. With new technologies at our disposal, we are now powerfully networked and politically active.

We are “Networked Moms.”

Women are now networked together in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. By the end of this year, more than 90 percent of moms with kids under age eighteen in our nation are expected to be online. And, more than 36 million women are now active in the blogosphere, either publishing or reading blogs.

There’s a very different landscape now than 1996 when the “soccer mom” moniker was coined, but many politicians seem not to have noticed that times have changed and they treat women’s and mother’s issues like political footballs in a stadium that they assume is full of passive spectators.

They’re playing with that football at their own peril.

In order to win a national election, the mom vote (married and single moms) is most definitely needed. Eight in ten American women will become mothers by the time they’re 44 years old. Those moms are a powerful political force and a critical swing vote.

Here’s some advice to politicians: Don’t play games with – or worse, ignore – the issues that matter to women and mothers. Don’t try to ply us with meaningless platitudes.

Don’t talk at us. Listen to us.

Moms are struggling. With three-quarters of moms in a labor force–and nearly half serving as primary breadwinners, we have a modern workforce with family economic security policies from the Dark Ages.

Here’s what’s really going on with moms: Childcare now costs more than college in many states. Nearly a quarter of young children live in poverty. Nearly 80% of low-wage workers–and nearly 40% of private sector workers–don’t have access to a single paid sick day. More than 177 other countries have some form of paid leave for new moms but the U.S. still doesn’t. And not surprisingly, without such policies in place, having a baby is a leading cause of “poverty spells” in our nation. On top of this, women, particularly moms, still don’t get equal pay for equal work. Discrimination against moms is rampant.

In our nation, if you work hard and play by the rules–then you should be able to put food on the table and a roof over the head of your family.

Too often this isn’t the case anymore, particularly for moms. We can do better.

Moms want candidates who listen, who speak to the issues that we face each day, and who work toward real solutions for real people. And they’ll tell you so. A poll recently conducted by Anzalone Liszt Research found 57% of women voters (including 75% of Hispanic women and 80% of Black women, as well as 65% of women under 50) say they are more likely to support an elected official who supports paid sick days.

Yet moms rarely hear these issues brought up in Presidential campaigns. In fact, in the over a dozen debates for the Republican Presidential nomination, moms heard little, if anything, about access to sick days, affordable childcare, family leave, and other high priority topics that parents deal with every day on Main Streets across our nation. This is a huge mistake for any candidate seeking to win the support of moms.

Networked moms are powerful and we’re everywhere. My experience as the Co-Founder and Executive Director/CEO of MomsRising, a network of more than one million politically active moms, bears that out. Moms are blogging, they’re connecting on Facebook and Twitter and they’re taking online action to support issues they believe in every day. They’re sharing both messages of support for each other, like this 2012 Mother’s Day “mom fantasy” video, as well as ways to take action on priority issues. MomsRising has mobilized moms around paid sick days, environmental health issues, access to affordable childcare, fair pay and access to health care. We’ve done it successfully because moms pack a powerful political punch and our political power is growing. We are most certainly not on the sidelines, we are online and we are active.

Are these new networks changing our political landscape?

Definitely.

Take, for example, the Komen Foundation’s announcement that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood to conduct breast cancer screenings. There was such an Internet storm of protest from women and mothers that grew exponentially as friends told friends online, that the Komen Foundation was forced to reverse its decision. Women care about health care and they’re prepared to act to defend it.

The recent Internet furor over the absence of women’s voices at the Congressional hearing on contraceptive coverage is another good example of this power. The photo of an all male-panel on birth control spread like wildfire on Facebook, on Twitter, on blogs and through email, and ignited the outrage of women across our nation in an instant.

Women and mothers are networked and engaged like never before. Candidates who don’t listen to women run the risk of losing our votes–and thus their elections. Right now, because of his vocal support of women’s health and economic issues, President Obama’s support from women is increasing, especially among women under 50 (those most likely to have younger kids). In contrast, Governor Romney lost 15% of his support in that same age group.

It’s time to listen to moms. After all, we all lose out when candidates fail to address issues like sick days, affordable childcare, fair pay, and family leave which are important for moms, for businesses, and for our economy.

Modern moms aren’t Soccer Moms standing on the sidelines; we’re Networked Moms working on the front lines. This year we’re in the game and we’re playing to win!