Category Archives: Politics

The Revenge of the “Mommy” Bloggers

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MG 31511 199x300 The Revenge of the Mommy BloggersBy Estelle Sobel Erasmus

Here is a bedtime story to tell your little daughters…tell them…every night if you are able, because it is they who will change the world… they will have to. But you can give them a head start.

Once upon a time there was a woman. She studied hard, probably got into college; then began working in a profession, whether social work, publishing, television, communications, retail, education or another field. She liked what she did and was good at it. But then she got married (or didn’t) and had a baby, or two, or more. And what had worked before, no longer worked because the policies of corporate america give lip service to, but don’t really support the combination of working and being a mother.. So the woman who was now also a  mommy had to figure out how to make the best of her skills, and lucky for her a new industry had just been born… blogging.

The mommy started blogging; telling her story, and slowly but surely she found a lot of other mommies who did the same thing. These mommies formed a community of smart, savvy women, and eventually the brands and sponsors came calling. The mommies figured out that they could meet more of each other at conferences and form even greater communities and learn even more. When they went to these conferences, many of them, especially the grand lady of conferences, BlogHer made it simple for the mommies to get babysitting help. Other times, these mommies had help from the daddies. They missed their chiildren when they went away, and sure, they had fun, but more importantly, they solidified their personal and professional contacts, which ultimately allowed them to grow their businesses, which is the reason they went to the conferences in the first place.

It’s important for you to know that because your mommies are much, much more than just mothers. They are women. And deserve the same child-free time that daddies seem to get as their right, to recharge their batteries. But, mommies are recharging for a different reason as well, and have a different battle to fight.

Women and mothers need to change the world. Women and mothers need to change the subconscious ways that people think in our society. Why? You ask.

Because, as your mommy’s idol Gloria Steinem has always said, there are people in a patriarchal society that want to keep women and mothers down, want to minimize their impact even if they are smart and successful. Especially if they are smart and successful. These people use tools like newspapers and magazines and television, and female reporters driven by a lust for fame, and try to turn women against each other; all because they are threatened. They even use the term “mommy bloggers” to describe us. But when used that way the term is distasteful to most of us because it doesn’t credit us with the fact that we are more than mothers; more than mommies, even though we love being your mommy.

It is even used to discredit mothers who have created a movement to help other mothers. How awful is that?

So it’s up to us to put a stop to it. How can the mommies do that, you may ask. By using the power of our more than 50% of the population. Even if we’re treated as if we’re second class citizens.  It’s all about control. So we take back that control. We bond together, and together we have maximum impact through using our buying power. And we will use the hashtag that Miss Representation has set up and help them to bring the app to market that says #Notbuyingit.

So the magazines and newspapers that disparage us? We will refuse to buy them. We will cancel our subscriptions. We will cut and paste every story of every issue and send it out to the other women and mothers we know so that nobody needs to ever buy another magazine or newspaper. And we will tirelessly tell brands and sponsors that we do not wish to be called mommy bloggers.

And we will wait. Maybe not patiently, but we will wait. Until you our darling daughters are in a position to change the world. Because we are trying, but we KNOW you can do it. And we are going to work very hard (as hard as we work at blogging) to give you the tools to make that happen.

That is our revenge.

How do you feel about the constant misrepresentation by the media of mom bloggers and mothers in general? What can we do to stop it? 

It’s the Men, It’s Always the Men

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IMG 0700 300x225 Its the Men, Its Always the MenBy Estelle Sobel Erasmus of Musings on Motherhood and Midlife

As I pray for Boston, Cambridge, and my friend who left violence in South Africa to find violence in her peaceful neighborhood in Watertown. MA I’m struck by one important thread in all this.

The violence and terrorism was perpetuated by men. Always the men.

We didn’t hear that women were behind 9/11, Newtown, Waco, Oklahoma City. It was men; always the men.

Why?

Don’t get me wrong. I love men, married a great, highly protective one, have steadfast, loyal male friends and a wonderful, supportive father. I support the idea of the man as the archetypal hunter gatherer, even as the warrior (as long as its in a protective, not destructive manner).

Men have been there for me as mentors, bosses and yes, helpers always.

Once a man stayed with me at a deserted train station until the next one came. He had a daughter, he told me and hoped someone would do the same for her in a similar situation. A man also picked me up off the floor when I fell nearly on the tracks, years ago, while rushing to catch a subway. He was a six-foot four tall African-American man, and while I was lying there in shock he gently asked me if I was ok (I nodded), placed me on my feet, then gathered up the entire contents that had fallen out of my purse, put it in my bag, and sent me on my way. Another man, a hispanic, called me on the phone to tell me that he had found my pocketbook which unknowingly to me had bounced off the car seat and into the parking lot when I threw it down, after a night out. He was moving that day, but held the move off so that I could get my bag, which he brought right to my car. I could go on, and on and on. So there are good men…lots of them of every race, creed and color.

But, and this is a big but….the question must be asked. Why is it the men? Lone shooters? Men. Mentally deranged mass murderers. Men. Terrorists. Men.

Women may  become violent with others and paramours (Jodi Arias comes to mind), and certainly there are women terrorists, but in general, and statistics will support this, women don’t make plans to violently take out a town and bring a nation to its knees.

So… Again I ask, why is it the men?

I would love to know some answers, because the only answer I can come up with is that as a society we are way off-balanced. There is too much testosterone and not enough estrogen, particularly when it comes to government and power, and the emphasis on true caregiving.

I do think, even in these perilous times, that we can rebalance the energy of this world that most of us want to survive and thrive in.  We can raise our children’s consciousness early by focusing on the importance of them being strong, caring people. We can put the emphasis on character and critical thinking in our schools, and not just on meeting the numbers.

We can stop associating violence with power. Don’t tell or show your children it’s fine to take a water pistol and go boom boom; don’t glorify guns. Don’t glorify action heroes. Don’t buy toys that look like guns for your child to use to feel a false sense of power.

We can raise girls who will lean in early (before they get to corporate america) and have a voice, as I wrote in my post Make Little Girls’ Voices Carry. The stronger the girls, the stronger the women, the stronger the women who will lead. The more power women have the more influence we have to change the world…and yes, to influence men… and each other… the quicker the shift in consciousness that will lead to balance will happen.

Ultimately, I believe that more women in positions of power and authority will result in less wide-scale suffering.

Where do you stand on the ills facing our society today? What can we do now to rebalance our world situation, where it’s mostly the men who commit horrendous acts of violence and wide-scale terrorism?

 

Make Little Girls’ Voices Carry

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IMG 0587 300x225 Make Little Girls Voices Carry

Our daughters’ voices must carry. We can help.

 

By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

So I was an advocate for my daughter the other day. And how I acted made a difference in her experience of being heard, I believe.

About a month ago, my nearly four-year-old daughter  came home from pre-school telling me about a boy, who touched her on the nose and kissed her hand. She didn’t like it.

“He kissed my hand mommy and touched my nose, and I said no,” she told me. She also told me that he was from another country and didn’t speak English, yet.

Aside from thinking, ‘oh, how sweet that a little boy is showing his appreciation for my daughter by employing the courtly tradition of hand-kissing,’ I thought nothing more about it. That is, until she mentioned it to me again later that week, when I went to pick her up at school.

“He kissed my hand mommy and touched my nose, and I said no,” she repeated when I greeted her at the door. The director of the school happened to be there.

“He kissed her hand and touched her nose,” and she didn’t like it,” I told the director, who I should mention, I like very much, and does a good job.

“Oh, he is new to the school, and is affectionate, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, he’s so sweet,” was her calm response.

I told my daughter again, “just tell him No. No touching, and tell the teacher.”

Then, I moved on and didn’t think twice about it.

Until last week. Last week, my daughter again mentioned this boy’s name and said he was touching and poking her. Thinking, ‘oh, the teacher said it was no big deal,’ I didn’t make a fuss.

Then she said this.

“Mommy, you have to get me bandaids. Five bandaids. Because (boy’s name) hit me and touched me and poked my face and hurt me.”

Now, she had my full attention (finally).

“When did this happen?” I  asked.

“While the teachers were cleaning the tables.”

“Did you tell the teacher?”

She nodded.

“Did you tell the boy NO”?

“No.”

“Why not”?

“Because he won’t stop. He won’t stop touching me. He’ll never stop.”

“Do you want me to call the teacher?”

“Yes, I do, mommy!”

So I called the teacher and explained the situation. I was fairly calm , until the teacher said, “I wasn’t aware that this was happening; she didn’t tell me, but this boy likes to be affectionate with his friends. He likes to touch friends but he’s harmless.”

It was then that I felt the fire fill my soul.

I responded as my daughter’s advocate. The advocate she wanted and needed and the advocate all mothers must be for their daughters to give them the voices they need.

So here’s what I said to the very sweet teacher.

“I don’t care that this boy ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ and likes to touch his friends. It is hurting my daughter because when a person’s experience is invalidated or ignored it teaches them to be victims. I will not allow that to happen.”

The teacher was silent, and I continued.

“My daughter’s boundaries are being abused, and if nobody does anything, including the teachers than they are complicit in it, and I won’t allow that.”

Then,  I put my daughter on the phone with the teacher and the teacher told her to please tell a teacher if this happens again with him or anyone, and to tell the person No.”

I said, “the teacher will make sure you are protected, but you have to speak up.”

The teacher suggested to me that my daughter and the child be separated. I said, yes, but only if my daughter is not made to feel uncomfortable. That’s when I learned that the child was already separated from some of his “friends” during circle time. The teacher said, “we’re working with him.”

My response: “That’s not my problem, and it will not become my daughter’s problem either.

So maybe some people believe the boy is sweet and he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

But he did hurt my daughter. He hurt her by making her think it was ok for him to broach her boundaries and touch her and that everybody was ok with it (he’s so harmless), and so nothing would happen to him, so why even bother speaking up. That’s the message my daughter received.

And that. That is just not acceptable!!

That’s how you get to a Steubenville.

Because what happens when boundaries are ignored; when a girl speaks up and is ignored?

What happens is that society is teaching her that her voice won’t be heard. And I am determined that will NOT be my daughter’s experience.

Not while I can give her the voice she needs, and the power to use it.

And now I know something else. Our daughters must start having a voice that is heard early. Like in pre-school.

If we wait for a person like Sheryl Sandburg to tell them to lean in and ask for their rightful place at the table when our daughter’s are in their 20s, or even in their teens, well, then it’s just too late.

How can we continue to give girls a voice so they are not made to feel like they can’t be heard? The more I see and hear and the more Steubenville’s there are, the more I believe that our earliest work of empowerment needs to start with young girls, not teenagers, not young women, but young girls. 

He’s Proud to be an American

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get attachment.aspx 225x300 Hes Proud to be an American

The actual flag and oath from the immigration office

By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

So I have wonderful news this week. My South African hubby, who came to this country from New Zealand for the first time in 2001, finally took the steps necessary to become a member of our great nation…and on Thursday, he was confirmed as a U.S. Citizen. It’s about time, right? He’s been a permanent resident since 2004, a year before we became engaged and married in 2005.

This makes me happy for several reasons. Our daughter is a U.S. citizen; and I’m a U.S. citizen; so it makes sense that her daddy would be one, too. Second, now he can vote and not just give lip service to his candidate of choice (which by the way, often differs from mine, but I’m ok with that).

His experience at the office of immigration left much to be desired:  Long, long lines; (our government at its finest) people who brought their entire families, and did not even dress up for their interviews (baggy jeans, with underwear sticking out a la rap star,  apparently was the dress code of the day). My husband, however, dressed according to the rules, which asked applicants to avoid wearing jeans or shorts.  I can’t say I’m descended from a Mayflower family, however, I know that one must show respect to the country you are emigrating to.

The interview included an English-speaking test, a writing test and a  test, where the applicants had to get six questions correct out of ten questions asked, derived from a booklet (and DVD) set that included 100  Civics questions. a My hubby aced the test in 10 minutes; while others took much, much longer (if they passed at all) to complete their interviews.

Here are some random questions from the question book my husband was given to study before his interview :

1) How many amendments does the constitution have?

2) The House of Representative has how many voting members?

3) If both the President and the President can no longer serve who becomes President?

4) Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?

5) The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name the writers?

6) What did Susan B. Anthony do?

 Answers on the bottom

How did you do?

Please now join me in a refrain of Lee Greenwood’s Song, “G-d Bless the USA” in honor of my hubby and his new status, which my daughter and I have taken to singing every time he walks into the room.. (So far he’s still smiling).

 I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

 

 

Answers: 1) 27, 2) 435 3) The Speaker of the House 4) John Roberts 5) James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, under the pen name Publius 6) She fought for women’s rights

 

When did you or your relatives emigrate to America and are you proud to be an American and why?

 

 

The Marissa Mayer Controversy: Let’s Shift the Conversation from Mud Slinging to Caregiving

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By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

Marissa Mayer’s decree leaked last week –that employees of Yahoo could not work remotely or from home started a feeding frenzy of posts, commentary and of course, discourse; some extremely hostile toward mothers.

To paraphrase, many of the comments postulated that allowing mothers the flexibility to work from home was akin to having the company subsidizing childcare for these women. Others said women make the choice to have kids so they have to deal with it. What? Wait a minute!

Somebody please tell me when this discussion about the rights of workers to be able to have flexibility if they need it, while still adhering to proper performance standards became only about mothers and their choices? To make this the conversation convolutes, confuses and somehow diminishes the issue–which is about creating draconian working conditions for people; and not accepting that most people thrive in positions that allow for flexibility when necessary.

The real point is that this is a corporate policy issue–one that can start to become endemic–if another company rides the admittedly unpopular wave and opts in to the concept and then another (like Best Buy just did), and then another; soon it will just be accepted that employees need to be at their desks all day long, five days a week.

This potential shift in corporate policy frankly will not suit anyone-men or women, gay or straight, young or old, married or single.

Why? Because we do have something in common. We are a nation of caregivers. According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP:

*There are an estimated 44.4 million American caregivers age 18 and older who provide unpaid care to an adult age 18 or older. Ten million people are caregiving for those 18-50; over 34 million caregivers are caring for people 50+.

*Almost six in ten caregivers work while providing care, and 62 percent have had to make some adjustments to their work life…from coming in late and leaving early, to taking a leave of absence, to giving up work entirely.

*Nearly half of all caregivers say they provide eight hours or less of care per week, and one in five (17%) says they provide more than 40 hours of care per week.

*Many caregivers fulfill multiple roles. Most caregivers are married or living with a partner (62%), and nearly 40% have children under 18 living at home. The great majority of caregivers (83%) are helping relatives.

*Although the caregiving landscape is still dominated by women helping women, the proportion of caregivers who are men is substantial. Nearly four in ten caregivers are men.

This is what we need to shift the conversation to: the value of caregiving: whether it be  children, aging parents, or, yes, taking that time to do errands, or get your cable set up without feeling that because you can’t give face time in an office that somehow correlates to your true performance at work.  If you are working on a project at 3:00 am and accomplish what you need to do; that should be the measuring stick, not the “effect” of showing the boss that you are slaving away at your desk.

So let’s stop dragging mothers into this fray and keep the conversation where it belongs: on the value of caregiving and the value of having government and corporate policies that support those efforts.

Because one way or another we all have caregiving in our past or future. Shouldn’t it be visible and valued?

Estelle Sobel Erasmus is an award-winning journalist, columnist and author who writes a blog Musings on Motherhood and Midlife chronicling her often humorous, sometimes serious, but always transformative journey through motherhood and marriage. She is on the board of directors of the national non-profit Mothers & More, and was featured in the anthology: What Do Mothers Need? Motherhood Activists and Scholars Speak Out on Maternal Empowerment for the 21st Century (Demeter Press, 2013). A piece she wrote was included in the 2012 BlogHer Voices of the Year Anthology.

 

 

Why Yahoo Just Became Obsolete

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By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

This post which I wrote on Saturday night 2/23 was syndicated on BlogHer on Sunday, 2/24, resulting in frenzy of views, discussions and follow-up posts from other writers. It has been mentioned on Good Morning America and other news programs and has been named a staff pick of the week for the National Association of Mothers Centers.

It is the #1 most popular post on BlogHer, and as of today, 3/2 there are 5,328 views, and 96 comments and counting. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, if you’re a parent you’ve probably heard the newest decree from Marissa Mayer, the young CEO of Yahoo, who was hired when she was five months pregnant and notably took only a two-week maternity leave after popping out her baby, undoubtedly while being fanned by her doula, a waiting nanny in tow.

Her decree, uttered with all the certainty that an empress can have from her ivory citadel, was that no longer could Yahoo employees work remotely (aka from home, or anywhere else that’s not the office) anymore.

“Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” says the memo from the human resources department, and reprinted by Kara Swisher on allthingsd.com. “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.”

This proclamation assumes that Marissa Mayer is living in the real world today (which she is not); that Yahoo is a relevant company (it is not), and confirms that Yahoo, a technology company follows a construct of the working world straight out of the Mad Men era. Way to join the 21st century Yahoo. Not.

All of this is just plain wrong, not just for women but for PARENTS. The statistics are clear that working remotely works to boost both morale and productivity. Google’s made changes to their family leave policy, increasing the time spent out of the office, and the results were a lower attrition rate of new parents.

According to the 2012 National Study of Employers, “between 2005 to 2012, employers have increased their provision of options that allow employees to better manage the times and places in which they work. These include flex time (from 66% to 77%); flex place (from 34% to 63%); choices in managing time (from 78% to 93%); and daily time off when important needs arise (from 77% to 87%).”

And a study recently published by Stanford, says that if you work from home at least some of the time  you are most likely a more productive worker. During the 9-month study of call center workers for a travel agency in China, they found:

  • A 12 percent increase in productivity for the at-home workers. Of that increase, 8.5 percent came from working more hours (due to shorter breaks and fewer sick days) and 3.5 percent came from more performance per minute. The researchers speculate this was due to quieter working conditions.
  • No negative spill-overs to the control group stuck in the office even though they had communicated that they wanted to work from home.
  • A 50 percent decrease in attrition among the work-from-home group.
  • Substantially higher work satisfaction as measured by a survey among the home group .

They also noticed, employees who were already more productive tended to choose working from home while less-productive employees chose to stay in the office.

Marissa Mayer needs to wake up smell the coffee. Hey, doesn’t she report to a board, made up of presumably, um, parents? Board members, your employee is running amok. Put a stop to it, or you will “Yahoo” yourself off the face of any kind of  business dealings now and in the future.

As for me, the only nasty spam I’ve gotten in my in-box has been from Yahoo, and since I don’t work there, nor do I hope to, I’m going to treat this concept the way I do any form of spam…

Trash it.

What are your thoughts about this situation?

Estelle Sobel Erasmus  is an award-winning journalist who is on the Board of Directors of the national non-profit Mothers & More, a support, education and advocacy organization for mothers which emphasizes the value of a mother’s work whether paid or unpaid. She writes chronicles her often humorous, sometimes serious, but always transformative journey through motherhood and marriage in her award-winning blog, Musings on Motherhood and Midlife

Why I Will Never Let My Daughter Ride Her Bike Alone

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IMG 0990 225x300 Why I Will Never Let My Daughter Ride Her Bike AloneBy Estelle Sobel Erasmus

My daughter is 3 1/2; young enough so I basically know where she is every minute of every day. When she’s not with me, she’s with my husband, or her grandparents, a trusted baby sitter or pre-school. But it won’t always be like that-as she gets older she’ll want more independence; and I’ll give it to her-within limits. One limit I will impose is that she can’t go bike riding alone or with friends without me there. Why? We live in a scary world, which is getting more frightening by the minute.

According to the Department of Justice, of the 800,000 children reported missing annually, approximately 69,000 are abducted and non-family abductions account for 18 percent (12,000) of the reported cases. The most common way children are abducted in non-family abductions? Taken off the street or dragged into a car.

And although they say stranger abduction is statistically very rare (accounting for only 18 percent of reported cases) the fact can’t be denied that if it happens to your family the statistic is 100%. I repeat. 100%.

There have been a rash of attempted lurings of children in my state (more than a dozen in the past two weeks), and recently we heard the heartbreaking news that the body of a twelve-year-old, discovered missing after riding her bike in a park on a Saturday afternoon was found in a recycling bin. A mother has turned in her two teenage sons to the authorities.

New Jersey State Senator Richard Codey is calling for tougher penalties for those convicted in attempted abductions.

“With spike in child luring reports, I’m introducing legislation to strengthen the law and increase penalties,” Codey wrote on Twitter.

Tougher legislation is absolutely imperative. The criminals are getting bolder. There have been several attempted abductions throughout the country, at parks, and even one in plain sight at a hockey game.

I think about how sick some people are, and then I remember an incident from my teenage years growing up in Long Island. I used to work at the public library and would ride my bike there and back. My route was an easy one and took me about fifteen minutes: down the street, past the hospital, across a big highway till I arrived at the building. One day I left work and was halfway home; it was around six-thirty in the evening, when I noticed a car driving along, keeping pace with me.

I glanced over, and saw a few men in the car. They called out to me to come over to them… the calls became more and more aggressive. Frightened, I pedaled faster but the car sped up; then I turned my bike around, and…the car made a U-turn. I  clutched tightly to the handlebars of my bike and rode into the backyard of one of the suburban homes. The backyards of the homes were adjoining, so I cut across all the backyards on the street, until I got home.

I immediately told my mom what had happened, but in those days, nobody called the police, or even thought of alerting anyone that potential abductors were on the loose. We simply decided that I wasn’t going to ride my bike to my job anymore.

I also got my mom to drive me to high school until I graduated.

Today I read the statistics with my heart in my throat, as I’m sure every mom I know does.

Every 40 seconds in the United States, a child is reported missing or abducted. That translates to over 2,000 children per day (under 18 years of age).

I do daily drills with my daughter. Never go with someone who is not mommy or daddy or her teachers. Not even to see their puppy; help them look for their puppy; watch video games; get candy. If someone picks her up yell, “this is not my mommy or daddy,” and then fight until she can run away.

And, no, I will never allow her to go bike riding by herself.

I hate feeling like this; but until we live in Utopia, it’s the only way I know to keep her safe.

What steps do you take to keep your children safe? Don’t you agree that we need tougher penalties for attempted child luring?

Why Tonight is Important

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Why Tonight is Important

I want to make sure my little one has all the rights and more, that we have today as women.

By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

Tonight is important; tonight is the night that the moderator, Candy Crowley, will be presiding over a room where hopefully the audience will raise tough questions  to both President, Barak Obama and Governor, Mitt Romney; and I’m hoping the debate will finally touch on issues that relates to women.

Candy Crowley is not supposed to ask followup questions of the candidates, but it appears that she will push for specifics when the candidates are fudging their way around  questions, to make sure all the answers are provided.

Here is my hit list of questions I want asked and answered:

1) Do you believe a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body? If not, why not.

2) Do you think that we should give tax credits for the “work” of caregiving or mothering? If not, why not?

3) Do you think its time for us to make sure that the Family Leave & Medical Act is followed by corporations? That it become part of the cultural zeitgeist to actually take the time off when there is a baby in the family, or a sick or aging parent?

4) What is being done to support the Equal Pay act of 1963 and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009?

5) Do you think women should have the right to vote? If not, why not.

Remember, it was only ninety-eight years ago, on August 26, 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment that we actually all got the right to vote as women in the United States. So, let’s not take anything for granted. Let’s make sure that we count. We are over 50% of the electoral vote and we need to make our voices heard.

Join me, I’ll be tweeting from @mommymusings011; and I’ve also filled out a Bingo Card from Mom’s Rising. If you want to support mothers, make a donation to Mothers & More, the national non-profit, I am on the board of directors on, that emphasizes the value of mothering and caregiving, whether paid or unpaid.

Do you think your vote counts? What questions do you want to hear tonight?

 

We Changed the Conversation

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By Estelle Sobel Erasmus

Nothing struck more fear into some women’s hearts than the oft-posted photo of a group of elderly male politicians caucusing in Washington to decide on the rights of our bodies. Aside from the politics of what they were trying to do, there were no women present at that meeting of the males. It is as we were invisible.

So, this time when the politicos again came a storming at our door, in the guise of the old and tired, “Mommy Wars”, after Hilary Rosen made an inappropriate comment about Ann Romney, “never working a day in her life,” instead of getting divisive we changed the conversation.

We changed the conversation to one of issues not “pass the tissues”. We demanded that government take note that women are 50% of the electoral vote and asked them to stop treating us as a special interest group; we insisted that policies be enacted to support women and mothers; to provide paid family leave, paid sick days, quality and affordable child care, fair wages and end the war on women.

And make no mistake, this is a war on women.

In October of this year, a new ruling to the credit card act Regulation Z went into effect via the Federal Reserve Board and the ruling prevents a woman from getting a credit card in her own name based on her partner’s salary, even if she had a good credit rating prior to making the decision to stay at home. The new rule states that “credit card applications generally cannot request a consumer’s ‘household income’ because that term is too vague to allow issuers to properly evaluate the consumer’s ability to pay. Instead, issuers must consider the consumer’s individual income or salary.” Translation: the partner making the income will need to co-sign if you want a credit card and aren’t working for an income. Shocking, right? This sets women back one hundred years. This also means that women and mothers in abusive relationships have one more layer of control to fight against (and one more way they can be made to feel unequal in the relationship).

Debra Levy, a past Board President of Mothers & More first wrote about the issue back in March 2011 in a guest post on Kristin Maschka’s blog. Kristin is a former Director of Mothers & More and the author of This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today which redesigns the concept of “ownership of income for the breadwinner of the family” to that of ‘shared income, based on contributions, paid or unpaid from the members of the family”.

The title of her post was: “Stay-at-Home Moms SHOULD be Mad at the Feds“.

Following Debra’s post, Tara Brettholtz, president of the Board of Directors of Mothers & More, and Gina Earles, the CEO of Mothers & More wrote a letter to Dr. Elizabeth Warren at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year expressing their concerns about the ruling. The letter was also sent to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

There was no response.

“Since over 80 percent of women in our nation have children by the time they’re 44 years old, this means the majority of women in our nation are disadvantaged by discrimination at some point in their lives,” As Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner on her blog on www.MomsRising.org.

These are alarming statistics. If we don’t see and shout our value to the world, we will remain invisible, and our work of caretaking, and supporting society and our community will remain invisible.

So who will help women and mothers? If you are looking toward established mainstream journalists, yes, somewhat, but look again. It is the bloggers who will bring forth a new generation of politically involved women (and we have to be involved, it’s a matter of our survival). These woman and mothers in the trenches know what is at stake. Bloggers are giving motherhood and the invisible work of motherhood a voice heard like never before in the history of our culture (since Gloria Steinem, my idol, created Ms. magazine).

Make no mistake. We are in a revolution. At stake: our value, our survival.

I will be working in the next few months and years on ways to give women a voice in government; a voice “around corporate America” policy, and a voice on the national stage. I will be providing tools and specific tips you can follow on how to create the change in your life that you want to see in the world.

In the meantime, there is much work to be done. Join Mothers & More,  which touts the value of a mothers work whether paid or unpaid, provides opportunities to connect with like-minded women, and offers chances to give back to the community and economically disadvantaged women through advocacy efforts like Power of the Purse. You can also check out www.MomsRising.org,  which highlights the issues and provides links to letters you can sign that go straight to policy makers;. Pay attention to bills on the table that will take away your rights and write to your local congressperson via writing to the United States House of Representatives.

Will you join me?  Rise up and be heard. Together women and mothers are powerful!