Green Options

I’m a bad daughter, as I haven’t gotten anything for my mother this year for Mother’s Day. The truth is I hate buying gifts, and I don’t have time to make anything. Of course, I have turned the responsibility over to my children to honor grandmother, but I did send her this video, which of course I had to watch first making myself Mother of the Year (on the same evening my daughter told me I was “extremely mean” for asking her to do her homework).

Mother’s Day originally began as a day of peace; it is not a Hallmark holiday.  MomsRising, an organization devoted “working to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America”, has created personal videos for Mother’s Day.  According to MomsRising, Americans will spend $16 billion this year on Mother’s Day celebrations!  That’s a lot of money to show Mom we care, and even though I have sent my mom her special video, I will probably still buy her some Dr. Hauschka.

I know, this is a green parenting blog. And my post is about politics. But the two are interconnected in so many ways that I could not resist writing about this.

I am proud that a woman is finally a vice presidential candidate in the Republican Party, as the Democrats had their first vice presidential candidate in 1987. Woman are making great strides in our country, and Gov. Palin and Sen. Clinton’s candidacy are evidence of that.

It is wonderful that she is a working mother of 5 children. But ask yourself, what will she do for families in poverty, and the middle class?