• Last updated 11/5/12 by Melanie Mayo

  By Peggy O'Mara                    In December 2005, thanks to the hard work of Marsha Walker and The Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition, the Massachusetts legislature became the first in the US to prohibit the distribution of formula sample bags in hospitals. However, then Governor Mitt Romney pressured the Public Health Council to rescind the ban.    The council successfully resisted his pressure until he fired and replaced three members just prior to a vote on the ban; in May 2006 it was rescinded. Less than two weeks later, Romney announced a $66... read more

• Last updated 10/31/12 by Peggy O'Mara

By Peggy O'Mara   Mothering was founded in 1976 as a quarterly magazine. The first issue was put together in Ridgway, Colorado by pregnant moms who were part of the same childbirth education class. The audience for the magazine was the nascent community of natural living pioneers.   One of our early articles talked about how nice it would be if a new mom could call a friend when she was awake at night with the baby. We didn’t even imagine the Internet then.   In 1995, an old friend told me to get a URL. My friend worked in Sausalito with several web... read more

• Last updated 10/22/12 by emilyfrischmann

By Peggy O'Mara Helping my daughter hunt for Easter eggs while babywearing my son circa 1976   Babywearing is a necessity for women all over the world who carry their babies while they work and do domestic tasks. This practice has been around for centuries, but has seen a dramatic resurgence in popularity in recent years. Why? Because touch is good for us.   THE BENEFITS OF TOUCH According to a study in Pediatrics, babies who are carried cry less. Babywearing for three hours a day reduced infant crying by 43 percent overall and 54 percent during... read more

• Last updated 10/22/12 by emilyfrischmann

By Peggy O'Mara The recent furor in the press over attachment parenting stems from an inherent misunderstanding. Attachment parenting is not permissive parenting. It is not about abdicating authority as a parent, but about responding to the legitimate biological needs of a baby. It is firmly based in the sciences of anthropology and psychology and specifically on the theory of attachment. THE THEORY OF ATTACHMENT The theory of attachment originated with psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1907-1990) whose influential 1951 report to the World Health... read more

• Last updated 10/1/12 by Peggy O'Mara

I’ve always loved playing cards.  My grandfather was a professional gambler and card playing was common at our house when I was growing up. My Aunt Kathleen would tell our fortunes with a deck of playing cards. When I encountered oracular cards, such as the Tarot, as an adult, I was captivated by their evocative design and symbolic meaning. They appeal to my love of cards as well as my love of the metaphorical. Most scholars agree that the earliest playing cards originated in China and Korea in at least the 11th century. However, there is much disagreement as to the... read more

• Last updated 9/30/12 by Peggy O'Mara

This past Saturday, September 29th, 2012, sit-ins by nursing mothers were held all over the US in response to a September 15th incident at an Applebee’s in Covington, Georgia. Dawn Holland was breastfeeding her 20-month-old son at a table in the restaurant when a manager asked her to leave and go nurse in the bathroom. When she refused, the manager called the police. Applebee’s has since apologized. Forty-five states, including Georgia, protect a woman’s right to breastfeed in public. Only 11 of these states, however, have an enforcement clause. What this means is... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by tommyo

Earlier this month the New Mexico Department of Health announced that it was changing the childhood vaccine exemption form. New Mexico allows medical and religious exemptions to vaccines and, according to the Department of Health, The old form did not require written affirmation of a religious-based objection to immunization, and it was not possible to discern the basis for the exemption request and therefore impossible to ascertain whether affiants were complying with NM law. For over 30 years, the state of New Mexico has accepted... read more

• Last updated 9/16/12 by Peggy O'Mara

When I was a young mom I believed that I could protect my children from all evil, or at least I would try. My eyes were opened when, as the editor of Mothering, I received a submission from a respected La Leche Leader whose teenage son was having trouble with drug abuse. I realized then that this could happen to anyone. After my own children grew up, they confided in me about drug experiences they had had as teenagers that I was blissfully unaware of. Now, I wonder how much my own myopic view of perfect parenting contributed to a blindness to their... read more

• Last updated 2/27/13 by Peggy O'Mara

Why is breastfeeding the feminist issue of our time? Let’s start by defining feminism. According to Merriam Webster, feminism is “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes;” the first known use of the word feminism was in 1895. Widespread concern for women’s rights dates to the Enlightenment, the European intellectural movement of the 17th and 18th century; in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft’s, A Vindication of the Rights of Women was published. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention called for full legal equality with men,... read more

• Last updated 9/4/12 by Peggy O'Mara

When I was girl, I was fascinated by the big crock of delicious dill pickles my Grandma kept in her basement. I’ve always wanted to make pickles like my grandmother, and when I saw pickling (Kirby) cucumbers in the co-op last week, I scooped them up. I intended to make crock pickles, but after reading the great recipes in The Art of Preserving by Rick Field, Lisa Atwood, and Rebecca Courchesne, I decided to jar them instead and process them in a water bath.  An afternoon’s work netted 6 jars of dill pickles, 6 jars of bread and butter pickles, 6 jars of jalapeno... read more