PUMPED! ALL MOMS ARE SOCIAL NETWORKERS

- Shari Sonta, Contributing Writer

I’m so glad that I can now celebrate Mother’s Day because I’ve reached an age where my birthday has become an unsolicited reminder that I am entering the “maturing skin” demographic.  Mother’s Day can be a day of jubilee commemorating that I’ve somehow held it together as a mom, wife, friend, and employee for a year.  Party hats, cake, and a piñata seem very appropriate for Mother’s Day (hmmm, maybe I should market that).  

When I was a child I used to always ask my mother “What do you want to do for Mother’s Day?” which she would reply “Spend the day with my family”.  I always thought she was insane.  As a teacher in an inner city school, wife, and mom to my brother and me, I always thought that an appropriate way for my mother to spend Mother’s Day would be to say “see ya” to us and spend the day at the movies and having lunch with her girl friends.  Or, as another way to put it, take a day off as a mom.  This year my husband asked what I want to do to celebrate the day.  There was no question.  I want to spend the day with my family. 

But something is going on right now in the world that is completely unsettling and it’s making me reflect how I should be as a mother.  People all over the world are starving, rioting, and even dying over food costs.  It really upsets me because I keep thinking what would I do if my child were hungry.  What makes it so horrible is there is
food, but we are burning lots of it for energy.  There is so much economic incentive
to plant crops for biodiesel it is squeezing out, and affecting the cost of other

commodity crops.  Plus population pressures, climate change, and more global meat consumption are all factors also affecting costs.  So if I was in Indonesia and I couldn’t afford soy anymore to feed my child, and someone was burning food to fuel cars I’d be very, very pissed.  I don’t remember things ever being so unfair and wrong, because hunger is becoming so widespread.  I also don’t think we are innocuous to it just because we live in the United States.  Costco announced this week they are limiting the amount of rice each customer can buy because there is a global rice shortage.  I expect to see more and more of these limits on food, and it goes to show that food does have a limit and hunger is a horrible sign that nature is under pressure.

I admit that being a mom has made me much more compassionate to others.  I think most moms and dads have a universal, genetically coded understanding of protecting their children. It’s like, the largest social network that we all share around the globe. 

So this Mother’s Day, in addition to spending the day with my family in the gardens at the Morris Arboretum (a great place to visit if you are ever in Philadelphia!), making Mother’s Day party hats, and drinking Tasty Baby peach bellinis, (yum!  Thanks Shannan!)  I will “linking” (offline) with other moms around the globe.  I also, in celebration, shot off some letters to my Congress folks about making breastfeeding a national right (duh!), wrote an industry article on global food economics, and supported a writer who sparked controversy over letting her kid ride the NY subway alone (a great story…read and comment on freerangekids.com).

Happy Mother’s Day!