Vote Mother

The saying is true: The hand that rocks the cradle really is the hand that rules the world. And the world has never needed us more. Our leaders can’t agree on how to educate our children, feed our families, work together as a global community, or keep us safe. Fortunately, mothers, one of the most underestimated and unsung political groups, hold the future—its children—in their arms and hands.

Whether these mothers in this collection are starting ambitious movements, taking on urgent matters that affect millions—or speaking quietly within their homes and communities—they are, like mothers everywhere, making a difference one person, one issue, one wrong-that-needs-righting at a time. For mothers who are willing to fight that good fight, The Maternal Is Political is a comfort, an inspiration, fuel for the fire, and a roadmap to a better future . . . for us and for all of our children.

America: Watch out. Here come the power-moms—women inspired by motherhood to change the world. Single moms, middle-class suburban moms, groovy organic moms—they're all here, speaking their minds, walking their political talk, and voting Mom.
—Miriam Peskowitz, Co-Author, The Daring Book for Girls, and author, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars

Like confetti in a July 4th parade, these vivid, wise, funny female voices give color to what it is to be a mother in America (and beyond) today.
—Leslie Morgan Steiner, Mommy Wars editor and daily online work-family blogger for washingtonpost.com

In this historic presidential election year in the U.S., American mothers are unleashing the largest population of newly voting-age Americans since the Baby Boom. What better time to make sure that mothers' political currency, and our children's, is felt? Reading the essays in The Maternal Is Political—some of them wistful, some triumphant, others angry or funny or  questioning, but all of them honest, reflective and heartfelt—I realized I hadn't felt so empowered or energized about the latent political power in my own motherhood since . . . well, it hasn't been any time in the last eight years.
With power comes responsibility, we all know, and I hope other readers of these smart, inspiring essays will feel as I do: that
taking our place in the formidable political bloc of motherhood is an inseparable part of our promise to our children, and, as one contributor says, an opportunity to connect all of our personal stories to the big picture of their future.
—Kate Moses, author of Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath,
cofounder of Salon's Mothers Who Think, and coeditor of Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-life Parenthood and Because I Said So: 33
Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race &
Themselves