With Mother’s Day on the horizon, May quickly becomes overwrought with all things MOM. And to be honest, I’m perfectly okay with that if it means we can use it to shed light on some important issues (and not necessarily flowers, chocolate, and greeting cards).
Every Mother Counts recently launched their #Every2 campaign in an effort to raise awareness for maternal health. The statistics are powerful:
Every 2 minutes a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. 90% of these deaths are preventable. Please check out the #Every2 campaign to learn more and help spread the word so that we can reduce these maternal mortality rates.
In addition to learning more about global maternal health challenges, you can upload pictures of your own birth, or the births of your children.
Me & my folks… 34 years ago.
Talking about motherhood… that’s exactly what I did yesterday. I was invited on to a local news show to discuss the pressures of parenting. Of course it ended up with me ranting about the lack of mandated paid family leave, paid sick time, and affordable, quality childcare, but how can we talk about realistically dealing with the pressures of parenting if we don’t address the systemic issues at play? You can watch the short clip here.
And, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t point out that Mother’s Day is an absolutely perfect excuse to purchase a copy of my anthology, The Good Mother Myth. It makes a great gift for mothers, grandmothers, mothers-to-be, and anyone who cares about moms! In honor of Mother’s Day, and because I love this book and the essays in it so much, I’ll be posting a quote/day from a different GMM essay up on our Facebook page. Please check it out and help spread the word.
Updated to add: If you’re in the NYC area next week, we’ll be having a reading/discussion for The Good Mother Myth at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn on Thursday 5/8 at 7pm. Hope you can make it!
The Mamafesto 