Sign this!

A little while back the mom blogs went through a bit of a tiff over a spot on the Today Show that grossly misrepresented the issue of mothers having a drink at playdates. Basically, the mothers would get together, their kids would play and everyone would eat lunch together. At these gatherings the mothers would have a glass of wine with lunch, say. So, Today does this segment on it, in which, amongst other tricks, they do this shot of a jungle gym with kids playing on it past a couple wine bottles looming large in the forefront. They did a real hatchet job. Then, they had a "discussion" afterward with Melissa from Suburban Bliss and railroaded her. It was pretty terrible, all in all. Just another excuse to attack mothers for no reason in particular. And it got the blogworld (or, at least those of us who are moms) up in arms for awhile. Well, apparently Momsrising.org has got together a petition, to end the mommy wars in the media.

The premise is that with mothers in our nation (and, indeed, the world) facing so many struggles on so many levels, why do we really need to make up reasons to become alarmist about what horrible, selfish, lazy bitches mothers all are? Why can't we focus the media on real issues that would really help mothers? Here is the petition. Please, everyone sign!

Apparently after the Today Show thing, enough bloggers made enough noise, and enough people reacted by taking the issue to NBC that the show took a second, more balanced look at the issue. So, there's maybe some hope?

Anyway, Alice Bradley writes about it much more elegantly than I do.

Here is Melissa's blog. She was brave enough to go on the Today Show in the first place.

Here is the Today Show segment.

And, really, it's not just this segment. It's all over the place in the media, blaming mothers for not being enough, or being too much. If you work, you're selfish and neglecting your kids. If you stay home, you're lazy and being a poor role model. If you work part time, you're not good enough on either front. There's just no real way to win.