I used to be part of this social networking site for moms called Mayasmom, really neat but…I don’t know, there was just so much “you go girl” talk and exasperated moms talking about their chaotic lives, I sort of felt like I was stuck in a Oprah Winfrey show. No offense, it just wasn’t my cup of tea, I’m just too introverted for that kind of thing. Anyway, I did discover a lot of wonderful mommy bloggers while I was there. This lady is one of my favorites. She’s currently heading a project to design a baby bottle shaped like a female breast…novel idea. Anyway, she’s been helping to promote a site called MomsRising which is actually based on a book and documentary by the same name (see preview here) which I’m really liking. They’re a grassroots movement trying to improve the rights of parents (moms especially but I think their intention is to improve things for families in general). Compared to most parents in the country, Mike and I are in a pretty good situation. I have my complaints about the maternity/paternity leave thing (or lack there of), but at least I got some paid leave. However, some parents get nothing and some mothers are severely discriminated against. I can remember a lady at work who’s daughter was having a baby around the same time I was. She works as a nurse. When her employer found out that she was pregnant, she was fired because she was the second pregnant person on that shift and he didn’t want to have to deal with two nurses gone on maternity leave at the same time. Crazy…yup! But when I looked things up, I was shocked to discover that there aren’t any laws that could have protected her or prevented her from getting fired.

They’re also trying to help encourage moms to stop bickering over what’s better, being a stay at home mom or a working mom. In the past few years there’s been literally dozens of books published on this subject. It’s as if there’s supposed to be a particular formula for parents to follow, everyone has an opinion and pretty soon you start questioning your own methods and lifestyle, feeling damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I just caught an interesting study off of DotMoms by the Pew Research Center:

A national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Feb.16-March 14 among 2,020 Americans, finds a widespread belief that today’s parents are not measuring up to the standard that parents set a generation ago. Mothers are seen as having the more difficult job, but they are also judged more harshly than are fathers. More than half of Americans (56%) say that mothers are doing a worse job today than mothers did 20 or 30 years ago. By comparison, somewhat fewer people (47%) say fathers are doing a worse job than fathers did 20 or 30 years ago.

It’s hard enough being a parent…why do we have to judge each other so harshly.