Mom Of The Year????

Since Mother's Day is tomorrow, I thought it only appropriate to blog about being a mom and other mom related news. Years, I ago, when my now 19 year old son was five months old, I joined a wonderful organization called The Mother's Center. This was a real grass-roots organization that was developed to find out how moms coped with the pregnancy and birthing process. It later branched out, by popular demand, to include other relevant topics for moms, like surviving toddlerhood, finding time for ourselves and, in my case, going through the adoption process. At some point a new moms group was developed called Mingling Moms. This is the light version of our group, which really only included a social event...lunch with the kids. This group kind of stole our thunder because they were getting a lot of publicity. We even tried to reach out to them, but they weren't interested. I wouldn't knock them...until now. Apparently, Mingling moms thinks it's a really great idea to honor celebrity moms or moms of celebrities. They've given Mom of the Year Awards to the likes of Dina Lohan, a mom of a celebrity who is now a celebrity in her own right, as well as, Jennifer Lopez, who has been a mom for about five minutes. This nice little publicity stunt has landed them some very nice PR on primetime news and entertainment news shows. Nice move on their part, but do these moms really deserve a Mom of the Year award? Not to be judgmental (that wouldn't fit the Mother's Center philosophy), but how about honoring some really important moms who have survived the illness of their own or, worse yet, their child's illness. How about single moms who hold families together or moms who not only parent their own children, but now have to parent their aging parents? It's nice to honor moms because we all deserve a pat on the back, but do it for the right reasons and not to just garner some publicity. Happy Mother's Day!!