67 posts tagged with mothers.
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Faulty hospital testing leads to newborns being taken from their moms
Susan Horton had been a stay-at-home mom for almost 20 years, and now — pregnant with her fifth child — she felt a hard-won confidence in herself as a mother. Then she ate a salad from Costco. The Marshall Project reports on how faulty drug tests have lead to mothers losing custody of babies after their birth even though the moms had done nothing wrong. [more inside]
It is almost 4; I hear the birds.
Chronic insomnia since I was a child. A cyclonic brain that will not rest, that is always ready to run, to keep moving; a gift of epigenetics. On this night, I am kept awake by the emotionally violent work of long-term eldercare for a mentally ill mother, by the news of babies and more babies dying thousands of miles away, by the cortisol-drenched shame of relapse. An earworm, and I begin to hum that old Cat Stevens line where do the children play. from Forever Less of Beauty by Elissa Altman
Every mother is a working mother.
“We are not sorry that we are carers. But we are very tired of being poor carers.” Anti-racist advocate for women's rights Selma James and others launched the Wages for Housework campaign over 50 years ago, in 1972. Online archives of Wages for Housework at Global Womens Strike. A "militant mama" who felt pushed out of political organizing on discovering James' work. Title taken from this 1977 issue of Safire, the inaugural newsletter of the US-based Black Women for Wages for Housework (founded in 1976). [more inside]
The influence of mothers on major figures in Black American culture
Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin are towering figures in Black American culture, politics, and community. Their lives and backgrounds have been thoroughly dissected, but what of the influence of the women who birthed them? How did the relationship with their individual mothers shape the men they became? Author Anna Malaika Tubbs explored that question in her book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. In a 50 minute NPR and TED Radio Hour interview, she discusses the impetus and history behind writing the book.
blame lies with a patriarchal society that ensures moms remain divided
"The real reason American parents hate each other: A lack of support splits parents into warring factions. Here’s what could stop the fighting (Vox): "Essentially, the culture and politics of parenting in America all but guarantee unending conflict by setting up impossible (as well as racist and classist) standards for good parenting and then giving people absolutely no help to meet them." Related: Science Isn’t Here for Your Mommy Shaming: When people sensationalize research, parents pay the price (Nautilus) [more inside]
The Lives of Others
When Clar told her his age, Tracey’s next words came tumbling out: “Where were you born?” “Come By Chance Cottage Hospital,” Clar said. Tracey stood stock still for a second, her mouth agape. Then she ran, leaving her mop and cart behind. Clar shivered. In that moment, a secret began to worm its way into the light.Two women gave birth on the same day in a place called Come By Chance. They didn’t know each other, and never would. Half a century later, their children made a shocking discovery. A long read about serial baby mixups, "Nurse Tiger", and mid-century life in rural Newfoundland, written by Lindsay Jones.
"A day of sentiment, not profit"
Years after she founded Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis was dining at the Tea Room at Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia. She saw they were offering a "Mother’s Day Salad." She ordered the salad and when it was served, she stood up, dumped it on the floor, left the money to pay for it, and walked out in a huff. Jarvis had lost control of the holiday she helped create, and she was crushed by her belief that commercialism was destroying Mother’s Day. [more inside]
The progressive to-do list is missing a very important idea
Day Care for All - "Free public college, health care for all, a living wage: These are all important causes that will improve life for millions. But there's another proposal that belongs on the progressive to-do list: universal affordable high-quality child care. In fact, I would put it ahead of free public college: It would help more people and do more to change society for the better." (via) [more inside]
Aeneas Fleeing from Troy (c. 1750) / He-Man Fleeing from Troi (2019)
Recreations of Famous Paintings of Myths Using Only My Children’s Toys from the series “By a Woman With Small Children and a PhD in Classics” on Eidolon, by Sarah Scullin, which also includes the posts The Definitive Latin Translation of “Baby Shark”, How to Travel Europe With Small Children, Writing While Mothering,
and A Woman with Small Children and a PhD in Classics Pitches Eidolon. Sarah Scullin’s other writings for Eidolon are worth checking out too.
Universal Childcare
"At the same time we thrust new parents back into the labor market, we also insist that they comparison shop for childcare in a country with no national standards for quality, accessibility or safety. Nearly 11 million children, including over half of children below the age of one, spend an average of twenty-seven hours a week in some kind of childcare setting, yet the burden is on individual parents to assess the risks and benefits of a confusing, unaccountable, generally private system pieced together state by state for the care of our littlest and most vulnerable children. In essence, giving birth or adopting a child in America means you also take on the job of government regulator. It’s an impossible task, with occasionally tragic consequences." A Blueprint for Universal Childhood Care (Jacobin)
When Will It Be Time’s Up for Motherhood and Marriage?
If you don't stop crying your head will fall off and laugh at you
Being a mom is a tough job, in large part because you just can’t reason with small children. What you can do, however, is lie to them. In honor of Mother’s Day, we asked Atlas Obscura readers to send us the most outlandish white lies their mothers ever told them. As it turns out, moms all over the world are telling some wonderfully inventive lies.
"I see you."
For an entire year, nearly everyone in Hollywood passed on adapting a film version of The Joy Luck Club. Even after Amy Tan’s debut novel became a best-seller, moving 275,000 copies upon its first publication, studio executives argued that no one would want to see a movie about Chinese-American women, especially since no stars were attached to it. Today, while Asian actors continue to be largely excluded from mainstream narratives — brushed aside and told that “non-white stars aren’t bankable” — The Joy Luck Club remains the only Hollywood film to have accomplished what most studios are still afraid to try. This is the story of how Asian-Americans pulled off a movie those in the industry never thought possible and proved Hollywood wrong.
It was just salt.
When you emigrate, you end up the last person to touch a lot of your family history. Somewhere along the line, we’ll forget my mom’s maiden name. We’ll forget what her actual name was before she changed it when she moved. We’ll lose language and the way to make a candle from ghee and a cotton ball. I can’t pull all of this information out of her, and I can’t carry all of it after she’s gone, and I panic when I think about how impossible it feels to one day not need her. But at least I can try to cook.
Scientific Motherhood
A well-stocked and carefully curated medicine cabinet conveyed care and successful home management, while an overstuffed or unconsidered one ran afoul of received ideals of motherhood. Yet while women were responsible for the cabinet’s care and contents, certain products essential to their own health and hygiene were long thought to be inimical to it.A feminist cultural history of the medicine cabinet, an interview with Dr. Deanna Day.
Women Who Wish They'd Never Had Kids
Women all over the world are coming forward to say it: I regret having my children.
Honesty this surprising and inconvenient breeds harsh backlash wherever it goes. In response to Dutton's Daily Mail story, some comments were vicious. "What an utterly miserable, cold-hearted and selfish woman," noted one. Another was astonished "such a vile creature could exist." Some have even accused these mothers of committing child abuse for daring to utter such thoughts.
Honesty this surprising and inconvenient breeds harsh backlash wherever it goes. In response to Dutton's Daily Mail story, some comments were vicious. "What an utterly miserable, cold-hearted and selfish woman," noted one. Another was astonished "such a vile creature could exist." Some have even accused these mothers of committing child abuse for daring to utter such thoughts.
Breast-Feeding the Microbiome
Why do human mothers spend so much energy manufacturing complex sugars (the third most plentiful ingredient in human milk) that babies can't even digest? Why do these complicated chemicals pass through the stomach and small intestine unharmed? What if a large amount of breast milk isn't food for babies at all? What if it is food for microbes?
MOTHER, WRITER, MONSTER, MAID
Rufi Thorpe writes about being an artist and a mother in Vela.
Some Mothers Do Ave Em Returns
Believe it or not but Some Mothers Do Ave Em is reputed to be returning to our screens some time next year with the original cast. Michael Crawford is 73, so it's going to be a case of, Ooh Betty me knees have gone!!
What She Left Me
"They’re such small things —a big toe, an ankle joint—but if they’re yours and they hurt, they become huge. Once it became painful to walk, I found myself wondering if the cancer was coming back, as it can, in my feet, which made me think about the hysterectomy I’d undergone just months before. I found myself thinking, if I cut off my feet, they wouldn’t hurt."
After my son was born, everyone told me to write it all down.
"I'm trying to think of when my birth story begins, and even though this isn't fair to my son and isn't part of his story, I know it has something to do with when my sadness begins." Part of the Exposing the Silence project.
"When you change your inner voice, your entire world changes."
After seeing a young friend struggle with body image and depression, Florida-based photographer Natalie McCain was inspired to start the Honest Body Project, a series of portraits of mothers showing their beauty and imperfections to their children, paired with their stories in their own words. “My goal with this project is to help mothers everywhere learn to love their bodies and wear them proudly in front of their daughters,” McCain says. “Stop calling yourself fat. Stop shying away from being in photos. Stop body-shaming. Learn to love your body, and in turn, set a good example and start conversations with your children about how women really look.” A small number of images may be NSFW or triggering. Further details within. [more inside]
and somehow pretend that everything is all right
Anna & Eve is a photo project by artist Viktoria Sorochinski exploring relationships between mother and daughter.
"She's as wild as a caged animal. Try again in a few days."
My mother is like another country I used to live in, familiar but no longer a place I call home. When I visit, I don't stay long; dysfunction is the official language, the terrain is a desert of constantly shifting emotions, and the weather is grey when it's not dark and stormy. Estrangement is so much easier.
"...a woman who becomes a mother cannot have the same career as a man."
Can the U.S. Ever Fix Its Messed-Up Maternity Leave System?
Most new mothers are in their 20s or 30s, which means they grew up in a world of female Supreme Court justices, politicians, and astronauts. They have more college degrees than men, they entered the workforce in near-equal numbers, and they chose their careers assuming that having children wouldn’t mean losing money. Almost two-thirds of women with children under 6 work, about twice the rate of the previous generation. "I went to college and found something I loved. I got a job. I married and had babies and just assumed maternity leave was something that existed," says Annalisa Spencer, 31, an electrical engineer in Salt Lake City who has three children, and got no leave for the third. "Nobody told me it would be like this."[more inside]
American mothers around the world
Joanna Goddard has been interviewing American women raising their children in other countries, to hear how motherhood around the world compared and contrasted with motherhood in America. She's talked to parents in
Norway,
Japan,
Congo,
Northern Ireland,
Mexico,
Abu Dhabi,
India,
England,
China,
Germany,
Australia,
Turkey, and
Chile. [more inside]
The clipboard lets me know it’s science.
Relax on your pristine white couch and enjoy these realistic depictions of motherhood.
Mothers
Long-Lost Photos Show What Hasn't Changed About Motherhood In 50 Years. Is a collection of 50 year old photos from around the world by Ken Heyman. Taken originally for the pulitzer-nominated book Family (co-authored with Margaret Mead), they were left sitting in a storage container for decades.
The devourer and the devoured
"Nobody would believe how difficult it is to be the mother of a Wunderkind. Everything I do is wrong; everything the child does is “for effect”; everything we say is utterly untrue. If Vivien runs up to me and kisses me, I hear it murmured that she is trained to do so. (“Whipped to be affectionate in public!”) So I tell her never to do it again. Immediately people remark how cold I am to the child; how the poor little creature evidently fears me and prefers Fräulein Muller.
We take her with her hoop and skipping-rope to play in the park? It is said we make her pretend to be infantine, force her to act the “happy child” when people are looking on! So we take her toys from her and conduct her for prim walks between us. “Poor little unnatural creature!” say our friends: “she has no child-life at all.”
The Devourer and the Devoured is a long essay by Emily Hogstad about the intertwined lives of the novelist Annie Vivanti and her daughter Vivien Chartres, a world-famous violin prodigy, at the beginning of the twentieth century.
What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?
"A sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, Edin is one of the nation's preeminent poverty researchers. She has spent much of the past several decades studying some of the country's most dangerous, impoverished neighborhoods. But unlike academics who draw conclusions about poverty from the ivory tower, Edin has gotten up close and personal with the people she studies—and in the process has shattered many myths about the poor, rocking sociology and public-policy circles. [more inside]
In Focus: Mothers and Daughters
Today, March 8, is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the social, political and economic achievements of women, and focus attention on areas still needing action. In the run-up to the event, Reuters photographers in countries around the globe took a series of portraits of women and their daughters. They asked each mother what her profession was, at what age she had finished education, and what she wanted her daughter to become when she grew up. They also asked each daughter at what age she would finish education and what she wanted to do in the future. (SLAtlantic)
Moms
Two very different commercials about mothers.
1. Old Spice "Momsong"
2. P&G "Pick Them Back Up"
Bring your tissues for that second one.
1. Old Spice "Momsong"
2. P&G "Pick Them Back Up"
Bring your tissues for that second one.
[hidden mother photos]
I was completely surprised at the serenity
"Ray Collins, we love you!"
Los Angeles, late 1962. A bar-band's guitarist invites a drunken carpenter on-stage to sing "Work with With Me Annie". Louie Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the death of Frank Zappa, let us pause to celebrate the life and ponder the fate of Mother Ray Collins, who passed away last December.
Ray Collins was one of Zappa's earliest collaborators, the Mothers' lead vocalist, an under-appreciated contributor to the Mothers' sound (and to "conceptual continuity"), one of a very small number of people to share song-writing credits with Zappa, carpenter, taxi driver, dish washer, world-class procrastinator, a perennial "where are they now" subject since 1968, and finally unofficial Village Greeter of Claremont, California. [more inside]
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the death of Frank Zappa, let us pause to celebrate the life and ponder the fate of Mother Ray Collins, who passed away last December.
Ray Collins was one of Zappa's earliest collaborators, the Mothers' lead vocalist, an under-appreciated contributor to the Mothers' sound (and to "conceptual continuity"), one of a very small number of people to share song-writing credits with Zappa, carpenter, taxi driver, dish washer, world-class procrastinator, a perennial "where are they now" subject since 1968, and finally unofficial Village Greeter of Claremont, California. [more inside]
I have a bad feeling that a huge and horrible crime happened.
Models and their Mothers
Blogging About Parenting
Blogging about parenting. Little Seal is about Emily Rapp's son Ronan, who is 2 1/2 and has Tay-Sachs disease. Count on Rapp for a jolt of humanity and perspective amid the mundane. Her Bad Mother is Catherine Conners, a working mom devoted to her husband and children, who chronicles the ups and downs of parenting, balancing it all with humor and poignancy. She is not afraid to speak out against mothers who believe that their way is the best way to raise kids. These blogs are among the 25 Best Blogs 2012 per Time magazine.
"I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother."
The Mom Stays in the Picture - When Allison Tate wrote about how "Too much of a mama's life goes undocumented and unseen... I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them", it resonated with many other women. "To read through the notes that came with the thousand-plus photos (and yes, we have read every single one) was to read the minds of today's mothers. Over and over you told us that you don't look the way you want to look, don't look the way you once did. Even when joining a movement created around the motto 'I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother,' you felt the need to apologize." (via middleclasstool's other half)
a Disney princess besides Mulan whose mother is alive, let alone named
A tribute to all the mothers of the world
For us children, our mother's nagging can be a frustrating, constant annoyance. However, when her presence is no longer felt, these words become our strongest source of comfort and affection. It is then that we learn to hold on tightly to these warm, faint traces of memories. From Singapore, a "tribute to all the mothers of the world". [SLYT]
The Last Mother's Day
"You must love your mother very much."
Mushroom, Mushroom...
Lutheran hymn of the Minnesota Mother?
Why Minnesota mothers are doing pretty good. Cripes we all know about Tiger Mothers already, but what the heck can we learn from Minnesota Mothers?
These were educated people saying, "Your son made a bad choice" or "He's the problem."
GLBT rights advocate Carolyn Wagner has passed away. In 1996, Carolyn's 16 year old son, William, was assaulted in his school in Fayetteville, Arkansas, following years of anti-gay harassment. School administrators rebuffed his complaints, telling him to man-up. His mother, Carolyn, filed a complaint with the Office For Civil Rights that the Fayetteville Arkansas School District was in violation of their son's Title lX rights and succeeded in convincing the OCR that GLBT students are covered by Title lX, and won. [more inside]
Welcome Home, Soldier
"Regardless of political stance, no one can deny the joy felt upon seeing your loved ones return home safely -- WelcomeHomeBlog.com is a site celebrating that amazing feeling. Visit daily for heartwarming stories, videos and pictures of members of our courageous armed forces returning home to their families and friends..."
You Got My Pig In Your Tiger!
A tigress raised by pigs returns the favor. Cuteness ensues.
MOMS for the 21st Century
Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard introduced the Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services (MOMS) for the 21st Century Act on July 21st. This legislation proposed by Congresswoman Roybal-Allard of California is aimed at improving maternal and infant outcomes in the US. [more inside]
Let me guess- you didn't show that ad to a Mom, did you?
Want to sell your pain reliever to mothers? Rule #1: Don't make an ad that pisses off the "Mommy Bloggers". Twitter is currently "Motrin Moms" central- but that's not good news for Motrin.
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