been there

Elizabeth Edwards - Making Her Own Choices

Over at Silicon Valley Moms Blog, one of the bloggers slammed Elizabeth Edwards for campaigning with her husband and taking their kids on the road with them. The post, which referred to a New York Times article from this past weekend, goes on at length and is very harsh.

I'm a fan of Elizabeth and was thrilled to meet her in Chicago at BlogHer 07. Someone attacking how she chooses to spend the time she has, as though it's anyone else's business, is way out of line as far as I'm concerned.

Chris at Notes From the Trenches wrote one her great, completely on-point posts defending Elizabeth and got tons of impassioned comments. Go read it ... it's Chris at her best.

And now, no surprise since we know how Internet-savvy Elizabeth is, she herself has commented on Silicon Valley Moms Blog. To get the whole conversation, go to the site, but here's Elizabeth's comment:

With all due respect, what you would choose to do is relevant only once: when you choose how to spend your remaining days. I made my choice; because of our lives it was a public choice, but the choice doesn't belong to the public, it belongs to me. And with all due respect, you have no idea what the quality or amount of the time I spend with my children is. I am reasonably confident your information is wrong because a reporter from the New York Times who was with us for less than one hour is your source. A reporter, by the way, who asked for time with our children and who, because our children are in fact children, saw good behavior and bad and who reported our wonderful advantures together as if the children and I were ships passing in the night, which is simply not true. Just in case you want to know, when we read the story to Jack (which we did while we watched one of the two baseball games we went to with him this past week), his response was actually very adult: that's not fair, he said, everyone has good days and bad days. And finally, what I said about Hillary's choices is that I had made the same choices she had made as a parent, and when I changed my choices I was happier. Just like you don't get to decide what makes me happier, I don't get to decide what makes Hillary happier.

I want to be entirely clear. You don't get to say I am a terrible mother because you think you wouldn't make my choices in my situation. You don't get to say that my children don't want to be with us when you don't know them and when, parenthetically, you know that happy children can be periodically disagreeable. You don't get to judge me because you think you know exactly what you would do if you had my disease. I want to be really clear: you don't know. And if the sun always shines on you -- and I pray it does -- you will never know.

Pretty great.

Update: Good Morning America covered the story this morning.

BlogHers Act Global Health Initiative is Maternal Health

The BlogHers Act global health issue for 2007-20008 is maternal health!

With more than 1,000 votes cast, maternal health took 22 percent of the vote.

It's going to be an interesting and exciting year for BlogHers Act and we are looking for your input, ideas on projects, ideas on groups we should be getting involved, and looking for volunteers. Now that we know what the focus is, we will be using the next couple of weeks to create the plan for the year. Look for that, but in the meantime, please let us know your thoughts, ideas and how you plan to get involved.

And if you have a health issue not related to maternal health, but still want to do your own BlogHers Act initiative, PLEASE DO!!!!! Just let us know, and be sure to tag it "BlogHers Act" so we can include it in our reporting of the project!

The Motherhood Named Website of the Month by Parents.com and GoodyBlog!

We are sending a huge Internet hug and thank you to Judy Goldberg and Barrie Gillies, senior editors of Parents.com and hosts of the Parents Magazine podcast, for choosing The Motherhood as the website of the month.

We are beyond thrilled that you profiled The Motherhood on GoodyBlog, Parents.com and talked about our growing community on your fantastic podcast.

Here's a quote from GoodyBlog about The Motherhood:

The best links, conversations, groups, and a powerful (but never cheesy) message of mom-powerment make this site seriously bookmark-worthy.

GoodyBlog is one of our newest favorite blogs and is on The Motherhood Blog Ticker so that even more people can find the great stuff there. Go to GoodyBlog and share the love!

Not the easiest trip home

After a great week at the beach, get this ... our car caught fire on the highway. Just started smoking up a storm, and then engulfing the car in clouds of smoke. Amazingly, a police officer was driving by just then, and helped out by using his fire extinguisher to put out the flames that spewed forth when the hood was lifted.

We still don't know why it happened, though probably some oil leaked somewhere (shows how much I know about engines), and we're more than a little bummed to be without a car that is now sitting in a body shop about 2 hours away from home.

But we're feeling grateful no one was hurt. Enough excitement. Now for some rainy days at home with the kids.

Vote! Which Global Health Issue Should BlogHers Act Champion for the Year?

We are pleased to let you know that since BlogHer 07 we have been reading through the BlogHers Act tagged posts, researching global health issues and have put together one more, quick poll so we can narrow the focus on the global heath issue we as a community are going to get behind (see link below!).

First, a re-cap: BlogHers Act is a year-long initiative in which members of BlogHer, both on BlogHer’s network and in our extended communities, will work to make a measurable improvement in Global Health (as distinct from BlogHer's Election 2008 Voter Manifesto initiative focused on the domestic issues of importance to Presidential candidates).

BlogHers Act will take a two-pronged approach to improving Global Health:

The members of BlogHer and our extended communities will work together to select a single global health issue on which we want to effect a measurable improvement in the coming year. By measurable, we seek to demonstrate progress on Global Health via key metrics to be determined (e.g., signatures, votes, donations, letters, live births, etc.). We will use an array of online and offline resources, actions and initiatives to deliver and report on this impact.

BlogHers Act also will encourage members who want to create their own, separate campaigns on issues of their choice to do so, and to report back to the BlogHers Act initiative. Wherever possible and notified, the BlogHers Act team will work to include these efforts in the final report of BlogHers Act project results.

Following is the quick poll on the one global health issue we want to focus on. You can put it on your blog, or send it in an email. We hope you do both. It is important to get as many votes as possible.

Voting ends at midnight on August 25th.

Following the vote, here are the immediate next steps:

August 26 – September 4 - Create action plan and calendar of events, including volunteers to chair and staff projects, outreaches and events, tracking, measuring success, projects at a potential “tipping point” that we could have a major impact on, next steps for identifying and securing strategic alliances with related organizations, and suggestions for month-by-month uses of technology.

September 7 – Launch BlogHers Act. Announce plan, calendar, suggested guidelines, means of reporting and communication and immediate next steps to the community.

Please vote and spread the word by posting the poll in your own blog or emailing it to friends. Tell us your ideas for outreach projects. And let us know how you can help. Get ready to make a difference on global health. Thanks so much!

Take the Blogging Mothers Survey Now!

I am honored to share with you the following letter from Judith Stadtman Tucker of The Mothers Movement Online. If you are a mom blogger, please take a couple minutes and complete Judy's awesome survey (which she is doing to prepare for writing a forward to an anthology on mom blogging - cool!)

From Judy --

Dear Blogging Mamas:

In preparation for writing the foreword for a new anthology on maternal blogging, I'm looking for feedback from members of the "momosphere" about the quality of your blogging experience. I've created an online survey and would be extremely grateful if you would (a) take a few minutes to complete the survey, and (b) share the survey link with other mother bloggers in your virtual and real-world communities.

Your blog need not be related to motherhood or parenting to participate in the survey -- if you're a mother who blogs (or a former mother-blogger), I'd like to hear from you! The survey will be open for one month (August 15 to September 15, 2007), or until I receive the maximum number of responses (1,000). Many of the questions have yes/no answers. Several involve selecting one or more choices from a longer list of options. Nearly all questions may be skipped. The survey is also set up so you can return to it if you are not able to complete it in one session.

More about the Blogging Mothers Survey: I am not collecting IP addresses or personal information (other than age), although the survey includes an option for providing the name of your blog, URL and email address, if desired. If you provide your email address, I may contact you directly with follow-up questions. If you provide the name/URL of your blog, I will include it in an online acknowledgment when I publish the survey results. Survey results are for research use only and WILL NOT BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. I will share a summary of the survey results with the motherhood blogging community when the final responses have been collected (via TheMotherhood.net, The Mothers Movement Online, and other outlets on request).

Please direct any questions or comments to me at editor@mothersmovement.org.

Many thanks,

Judy
Judith Stadtman Tucker
Editor, The Mothers Movement Online
editor@mothersmovement.org
http://www.mothersmovement.org

Take the Blogging Mothers Survey now!

Summer

Drying out

Western Pennsylvania, like many spots, was slammed last week with horrible storms, a tornado and lots and lots of flooding. We are digging out now, and just recently got our power back.

Yep. Four kids and no power for three days. That was interesting. Or not. It sucked, actually.

Our basement flooded, big time, and in the process one good thing happened - we discovered all kinds of things we did not even know were down there. Like a 35 year old Oscar the Grouch puppet, curled up in a ball at the bottom of a big, soggy box marked "Cooper's old toys." I loved that guy when I was little and now, don't you know, my kids have been playing with him ALL weekend. I am particularly puzzled, though, by the serious-choking-hazard string hanging from his body. Did I take him into my crib with me?

We all survived a lot, didn't we? If it wasn't dangerous Sesame Street merch, it was no car seats or second hand smoke. (I'll have to post more photos of these toys, it brings back memories and wait until you see how curvy Barbie of the early 70s compares to the photoshop version she is today.)

At the beach

We have a week with the kids at the beach, and today's day one. And lest I think we'll be getting some rest and relaxation, the kids woke up at the crack of dawn with their suits on, ready to go. So, we're off for a last blast of summer, with the girls leading the charge.

Bono, U2 and the Mothers

A few months back I was on a plane and happened to see an in-air video on Bono and U2. There, however many thousands of feet up in the air, I was a dripping, sodden puddle because Bono talked about how his shift to becoming an activist was fueled by conversations he had with mothers he met in repressive countries. It was the mothers who told him that their sons had gone missing, or their husbands had disappeared, or their brothers had been taken in the night. These women told him what was going on in their countries - that people were disappearing and never returning, and it was from there that Bono and U2 recorded Joshua Tree.

And from there that U2 put on the incredible concert in Santiago, Chile with the "Mothers of the Disappeared" in February 1998. The whole story as it unfolded on the in-air segment was a piece of history I'd never heard in its entirety before, and when I got home, Cooper and I got into a conversation about these courageous mothers and all that they'd gone through and also how remarkably ahead of his time Bono was. Cooper just sent me a clip from the concert, and it's still just totally gets me. The music is beautiful and seeing the moms on stage with Bono takes your breath away. Here it is.