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Thursday, July 07, 2005

2 worthwhile websites

Just a few quick thoughts today.

For one thing, I have another couple days (yet another deadline stretched to the max!) to finish the motherhood movement story, so still welcome input.
After you do that, take time to check out the new Motherhood Study sponsored by The Motherhood Project (www.motherhoodproject.org). Its findings are not of the knock-your-socks-off variety but do merit a good look if only because this apparently is the first broad-based survey of mothers, which is significant in itself! A team led by University of Minnesota researcher and grandmother Martha Farrell Erickson talked to 2,000 moms, randomly selected, by phone and followed up with extensive in-person interviews of a smaller sample. If you were to reduce the key findings to a very simplistic statement, it's that mothers almost universally said they feel great about being mothers, but do have some serious problems with their working arrangements. Most (surprise, surprise) do want to work but have serious problems finding time for their families, while also providing financially for them. One of the most interesting things about this study is how little notice it has gotten from major media. One possible reason is that the sponsoring Motherhood Project is housed by the Institute for American Values, a decidedly conservative thinktank. However, Erickson herself is a former family issues adviser to Clinton and Gore, and her methods certainly seem beyond rebuke. So check it out.

Another site definitely worth visiting these days is the reconfigured, much more lovely than last I looked home of Mothers Acting Up (www.mothersactingup.org) Moms really need an institution of their own, and I'm not talking about the kind I was worrying about yesterday when my kids were driving me out of my mind. Both the Motherhood Project and MAU may come off as a bit too partisan, but both are making some great contributions these days.

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