Empowerment in Afghanistan

This story from The New York Times is not specifically about mothers. But women are or become mothers right? We don't get enough information in the United States about what's going on in other countries. Most of the mainstream media would rather spend time shocking or scaring people. But I think learning about what women in other countries are subjected to is a valuable reminder of how lucky we are.

The Mommy Wars Part 2,000

This short article from the The New York Times is an innocuous piece about the wage gap between mothers and women without children. So far so good. But then the comments section is opened up and the flame wars begin. I think it is refreshing to read about fights between moms and women without children once in a while. I'm tired of the working mom versus stay at home mom debate.

Blogging About Momhood

"Mommy blogs" (I hate that term) are nothing new. Every few months the media runs a story on the wondrous "new world" of mom blogs. By now almost every mom I know has her own blog. But it is still cool to see the difference blogs make in the lives of women who write them and women who read them.

Mom Guilt

Is there any other kind? We're either giving it or experiencing it. This columnist captures the gut churning guilt that can only come from feeling less than a perfect mother. And I have to share her horror at not completing a baby book for her child. I even received one as a gift that was pre-made and all I had to do was fill in the dates and descriptions. And I didn't even do that. I hope my youngest can forgive me. I figure if I do a really good job for the next 20 years she'll overlook that bump in the road.

Super Mom

Everyone knows the mom who has to make homemade cards for holidays and birthdays, who never uses artificial anything and would die if her children preferred McDonald's over risotto, who needs to get a life. Being involved with your children is one thing. Being invested in them is another. This opinion piece deals with the overachievers of the mom world. I myself don't have that problem. Which I suppose is another sort of awful. Maybe I do need to take a hint from supermom and start running my home like a Fortune 500 company. First step, a big raise for the CEO (me).

Damned If You Do...

This article from The New York Times (I love, love, love The Times and I must say I feel smarter since I've started reading the headlines every morning and afternoon) talks about Sarah Palin and the struggle to be a working mom. Now no matter your personal feelings about Ms. Palin (maybe the "Ms." gives mine away) I am perplexed as to the double bind women are in. First there's the stay at home versus working mom debate but now there's the "You should stay at home and not work if you have five kids or one special needs baby." Who gets to decide? What about all of the male senators and representatives with young kids? Don't they need their dads too?

Oh Great, Now I Have More Stress

According to this article, a mother's stress level can make her children overweight. It doesn't really mention the mother's weight and if the additional food intake is shared in the household. Oh, and just to be fair they're going to measure the effects of dad's stress level next. That's big of them.

OMG I'm Turning into My Mother

At some point every woman thinks this. It usually comes after children when the words,"Because I said so," slip out. Turning into your mother can be a good or bad thing depending on the quality. It seems like we fight against it when we're younger and embrace it when we're older. Maybe we realize the value of their wisdom and experience as we gain perspective.

You Don't Say

This comes as a total surprise.

She Flies Through the Air...

Did you ever want to run away and join the circus? Ever have a huge crush on Gunther Gebel-Williams (no, that's probably just me). Here's the story of one mom whose life really is a "three ring circus."

Mother Nature

This article from The Scotsman begins with a story about a gorilla mother's pain at losing her baby and then delves into questions about animals in human society. Thought provoking whether your beliefs tend toward evolution or creationism.

What is Love?

Author Toni Morrison writes about love, motherhood and writing. And how you can do all three at the same time. This article inspired a conversation about the definition of love our generation inspires. My friend Sara unfairly characterizes herself as not intellectual but she's the one who brought the subject up. I usually just read something and go on to the next thing without thinking about the material in relation to my own life. But I started thinking about the concept. For me, love is believing in my children enough to give them room to make mistakes and not punishing them in ways that crush their self-esteem.

How Well Do You Know Your Mother?

This essay made me think about how much I know about my mother and how much my kids know about me. I've heard stories about my mom's life growing up but I realize I could learn a lot more about who she is now by learning about who she was then. I would tell my kids that among the Duran Duran and Wham posters I had a Paul McCartney picture in my closet (why?) with a "Where's the Beef" sticker attached, Will Ferrell doing anything makes me laugh, I love karaoke and have unrealized dreams of being a superstar and I drive in whichever lane I will be exiting from because I like to be prepared.

Women for Sale

The New York Times has a piece in their Technology section about the buying power of women. They highlight Dooce and her take on what women want, which is probably closer to the truth than what advertisers offer us. The disturbing part of the story is the matter of fact way advertisers and media companies dismiss cerebral content (anything feminist or political) and assert that women want makeup tips and gossip. Maybe the reason women don't respond to heavier subjects (of course using buying power as the only measure is highly dubious) is due to the fact that women are not offered the choice between intelligent and superficial very often. Maybe we need more outlets for smart women.

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Hopping on the Dara Torres Bandwagon

Dara Torres is everywhere these days. Wife, mother, Olympic swimmer at 41. But what does it say about our youth obsessed culture that she is subject to so much speculation about what she has or has not done to get back in Olympic shape? Maybe there should be more forty year olds competing. Maybe our capacity for competition and great feats doesn't diminish after we have kids and pass thirty.

A Dad's Take on Mom's Workload

Finally a father is brave enough to step up and challenge fellow fathers to take on their share of the work. And there's a bonus mathematical formula involved so you can calculate how much your husband does not do.

Routine Parenting

According to The Daily Mail mothers are returning to authoritarian parenting styles in response to the lax parenting of the 60s and 70s. Generalizations aside, when does having a routine for your children equal conservative parenting? Having loosely set times for eating and sleeping make parenting easier. It's the parents who take this to the extreme and cannot deviate from "the schedule" that make parenting seem more like a dictatorship than a democracy.

Parenting as Adults is Hard Enough

Teen pregnancy, after a decline in recent years, is on the rise again. The media saturation of all things teen pregnancy related (Jamie Lynn Spears and the teen pregnancy pact in Massachusetts) would lead most adults to believe teen pregnancy is an epidemic. Teen pregnancy does exist but, as with most things the media tries to scare us with, it is not as widespread as we are lead to believe. However, the problems of teenagers having babies should be addressed. In this New York Times article one teen mom details her life after baby and offers words of wisdom for other girls.

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What We Take For Granted

Single mothers are common in the United States. While difficult, it is possible to raise children in single parent families. But in China the rules and customs make it almost impossible. Here is one woman's story.

Lessons Learned from Mom

Lipstick Leadership is a new blogging event where people submit stories of the lessons their mother taught them. The blog's author, Michelle Y Drake, is interested in taking the lessons and applying them to the out of home workplace. My mother taught me the value of the arts and instilled in me a love of reading. She is still working on teaching me to be compassionate to those who don't seem to deserve it.

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Have One Kid, Save the World

Does having three children doom the world? If so, I'm going to hell. This blog post deals with discussion of the environmental impact of having more than two children. And the debate rages on in the comment section.

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The Human Face of the FLDS

This New York Times photo journal documents the everyday lives of FLDS mothers and their children at the Yearning for Zion ranch and after they were forced to leave. While it's easy to make judgments about people based on the stories we hear it is harder to be so righteous when we can actually see into their world (which I would suspect is one of the reasons they allowed this).

In the Kitchen

We all have memories, good or bad depending on the proficiency of the cook, of being in the kitchen growing up. My mother was a great cook and I still have lots to learn from her. Read one woman's memories of her mother and the bond they developed through cooking (recipes included).

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What Makes a Mother

This blog is written by a woman forced to surrender two of her children to adoption. She speaks out against the adoption business and has some good points about the absolute desperation of women to have children at any cost. As someone who has felt an uncontrollable biological urge to bear children I certainly sympathize with the pain of not being able to conceive. But we don't often think about the pain of the mother giving up her child, in some cases and countries she is not given a choice, so I think the airing of another view is helpful and healthy.

Is Staying Home a Choice

This opinion piece explores the dichotomy between choosing to stay at home versus being forced out of the workplace. The debate in the comments section is especially telling and interesting.

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Batter Up

Our children assume we have all the answers. But sometimes we learn about ourselves when we set out to learn something for our children.

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Hope Amidst Destruction

When you consider everything that can go wrong, and does go wrong, having a baby is an absolute miracle.

Giving Back

Donating money and time is easy when you have plenty of both but this mother is an inspiration.

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We Are All Working Mothers

While the debate between stay at home and working mothers rages on, in the end we all have the same concerns.

Last and Least

This story from The Washington Post is so poignant I was inspired to create a new blog with stories of motherhood from around the globe.

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