Friday, January 27, 2006
Effectively Channeling Anger: Be a MUTHA!
Are we angry? Damn Right! Birthmothers are angry that we weren't given more options and support to keep our kids! Adoptees are angry that they were not party to any arrangement made for their lives and are barred from their own records! Do we have a right to our anger - damn straight, we do! It’s righteous indignation!
So, what are YOU doing about it? Crying in your beer? Moaning, pissing and wailing? Blogging? Commiserating with one another?
Don’t get me wrong – there is a time and place to grieve and mourn and wail and scream, and cry a thousand tears. And these times will come back again and again.
But, anger come after the sadness and anger can be a very motivating fore when channeled.
Do you want to make sure than one else needlessly suffers the horrendous, painful loss that you did?!?
Well then think of other mothers who have channeled their anger into action:
MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers is a perfect example. Did they sit around ring their hands cause they lost their kids in horrific senseless accidents? NO! They used that energy that anger creates to work tirelessly to change laws and prevent as many future deaths as possible, and make their child loss be less in vain.
They learned how the legal worked. The lobbied. And in our case, we do not need to recreate the wheel. There are already groups doing this who need fresh blood. Join CUB (Concerned United Birthparents). Join BN (Bastard Nation). Join the AAC, American Adoption Congress. Help them to become stronger and more effective. Add your voice; make it count. Learn what’s been done already – what worked and what didn’t work. Make suggestions. Become a part of an organization because there is strength in numbers! Because each of our voices crying, screaming and wailing alone to the moon make a howl that only we hear and can only alleviate us individually and temporarily…but together…there’s no limit to what we can accomplish…. a shriek so loud the world can no longer ignore us!
There is nothing odd or new about a mother – or mothers – fighting for issues that effect their children. It is perhaps the most basic and natural instinct in the world. The Vietnam “occupation” produced the slogan "War is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things." And mothers are united and standing up against war and for peace in nearly every country. In Argentina, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (also known as Grandmothers of the Plaza, and the Mothers of the Disappeared, and commemorated in song by U2 in 1987) have been activists for human rights for more than twenty years, based on two interwoven beliefs: that they were born again of their children, and that they have become mothers to all victims of repression in contemporary Argentina.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo embraced these beliefs as a result of the horrific political kidnappings and deaths their children met during Aregentina’s “dirty war” against the Left from 1976 to 1983. The current Argentine government acknowledges some 9,000 deaths at the hands of the military. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights activists believe the number of dead who remain unaccounted for is more like 30,000, an integral part of a U.S.-backed effort to crush the Argentine Left and facilitate neo-liberal policies that were imposed in Chile by the Pinochet regime and numerous other repressive, U.S.-backed regimes across Latin America.
In Israel, the organization Four Mothers (named for the four biblical matriarchs) was very effective in spearheading the movement to withdraw from Lebanon. Bedem Ljubavi - Mothers For Peace, is a women's non governmental organization to prevent war and the spread of violence, was formed in 1991 when the first signs of aggression against Republic of Croatia appeared. They continue to advocate for the rights of war victims. Mothers for Peace was established in the 1970’s in response to the Vietnam War. Today, Mothers for Peace-International, dedicated on Mothers’ Day 2002, is a non-profit organization working to help the innocent victims of armed conflict and currently focusing on the Middle East.
Mother's Day in May 2000 was the kick-off march on Washington of the Million Mom March. They are today the nation's largest grassroots, non-partisan, chapter-based organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, and dedicated to creating an America free from gun violence. Mothers voicing their pain and their concern is universal and includes such organizations as Madre, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Peaceful Tomorrows, The Jerusalem Center for Women, Parents Circle, Women in Black, Code Pink, New Profile, Global Mothers for Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace, and Women Against Violence.
BIRTHMOTHERS – stand up and be counted! Join the move to restore our children’s right to the medical and birth records. We did not give them up to be treated as second class citizens! Help prevent unnecessary adoptions and assure that all necessary ones are open and honest.
Be a MUTHA...Be an Angry MUTHA!!! Nothing has ever changed like the world like an angry MUTHA!
Mothers United To Humanize Adoption!
So, what are YOU doing about it? Crying in your beer? Moaning, pissing and wailing? Blogging? Commiserating with one another?
Don’t get me wrong – there is a time and place to grieve and mourn and wail and scream, and cry a thousand tears. And these times will come back again and again.
But, anger come after the sadness and anger can be a very motivating fore when channeled.
Do you want to make sure than one else needlessly suffers the horrendous, painful loss that you did?!?
Well then think of other mothers who have channeled their anger into action:
MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers is a perfect example. Did they sit around ring their hands cause they lost their kids in horrific senseless accidents? NO! They used that energy that anger creates to work tirelessly to change laws and prevent as many future deaths as possible, and make their child loss be less in vain.
They learned how the legal worked. The lobbied. And in our case, we do not need to recreate the wheel. There are already groups doing this who need fresh blood. Join CUB (Concerned United Birthparents). Join BN (Bastard Nation). Join the AAC, American Adoption Congress. Help them to become stronger and more effective. Add your voice; make it count. Learn what’s been done already – what worked and what didn’t work. Make suggestions. Become a part of an organization because there is strength in numbers! Because each of our voices crying, screaming and wailing alone to the moon make a howl that only we hear and can only alleviate us individually and temporarily…but together…there’s no limit to what we can accomplish…. a shriek so loud the world can no longer ignore us!
There is nothing odd or new about a mother – or mothers – fighting for issues that effect their children. It is perhaps the most basic and natural instinct in the world. The Vietnam “occupation” produced the slogan "War is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things." And mothers are united and standing up against war and for peace in nearly every country. In Argentina, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (also known as Grandmothers of the Plaza, and the Mothers of the Disappeared, and commemorated in song by U2 in 1987) have been activists for human rights for more than twenty years, based on two interwoven beliefs: that they were born again of their children, and that they have become mothers to all victims of repression in contemporary Argentina.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo embraced these beliefs as a result of the horrific political kidnappings and deaths their children met during Aregentina’s “dirty war” against the Left from 1976 to 1983. The current Argentine government acknowledges some 9,000 deaths at the hands of the military. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights activists believe the number of dead who remain unaccounted for is more like 30,000, an integral part of a U.S.-backed effort to crush the Argentine Left and facilitate neo-liberal policies that were imposed in Chile by the Pinochet regime and numerous other repressive, U.S.-backed regimes across Latin America.
In Israel, the organization Four Mothers (named for the four biblical matriarchs) was very effective in spearheading the movement to withdraw from Lebanon. Bedem Ljubavi - Mothers For Peace, is a women's non governmental organization to prevent war and the spread of violence, was formed in 1991 when the first signs of aggression against Republic of Croatia appeared. They continue to advocate for the rights of war victims. Mothers for Peace was established in the 1970’s in response to the Vietnam War. Today, Mothers for Peace-International, dedicated on Mothers’ Day 2002, is a non-profit organization working to help the innocent victims of armed conflict and currently focusing on the Middle East.
Mother's Day in May 2000 was the kick-off march on Washington of the Million Mom March. They are today the nation's largest grassroots, non-partisan, chapter-based organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, and dedicated to creating an America free from gun violence. Mothers voicing their pain and their concern is universal and includes such organizations as Madre, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Peaceful Tomorrows, The Jerusalem Center for Women, Parents Circle, Women in Black, Code Pink, New Profile, Global Mothers for Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace, and Women Against Violence.
BIRTHMOTHERS – stand up and be counted! Join the move to restore our children’s right to the medical and birth records. We did not give them up to be treated as second class citizens! Help prevent unnecessary adoptions and assure that all necessary ones are open and honest.
Mothers United To Humanize Adoption!
# posted by Senior Mom @ 2:45 PM 
