• Last updated 1/7/13 by Melanie Mayo

This was originally posted on the Holistic Moms Network blog in August. This month the Holistic Moms Network took a huge step in support of working-class mothers that could ultimately mean the financial ruin of the organization. They moved their Natural Living Conference from a boycotted hotel (the Hilton Long Beach) to the Irvine Marriott. In 2008, the workers at the Hilton Long Beach signed union cards and joined UNITE HERE Local 11, the union that represents workers in the hospitality industry in the U.S. and Canada. With poverty level wages (average... read more

• Last updated 1/7/13 by Melanie Mayo

www.HollyHawk.com Digging Dirt Going Green By Jessica Williams, www.LoveParentingLA.com My friend is a landscape artist. She brings green things to life, beautifying everything in her path. I have had aspirations for our backyard but busy with three children and L.O.V.E. Parenting, I had yet to follow through. One Saturday, my friend took the reigns and decided to involve our children and work together to transform a portion of our yard into an edible garden. The children, five total between the ages of two and seven,... read more

• Last updated 1/7/13 by Cynthia Mosher

This giveaway has ended. The randomly chosen winner is Amy, comment #331. Congrats! You will be emailed. If you didn’t win you can still grab up some great LunchBots on their website! – Win a set of 4 LunchBots stainless steel lunch containers! One each of our most popular items including: -Blue Uno – The perfect container for packing a sandwich, sushi, burrito — your favorite lunch to go. -Orange Duo – The ideal container for snacks. It has a divider for crackers and cheese, fruit and nuts, and more. -Yellow... read more

• Last updated 8/22/11 by Mothering Editorial

    Etsy "Handmade Portraits" brings us toymaker Amber Dusick. Amber creates the kind of toys she wanted for her son: simple, natural, and inspiring. Watch her Etsy profile at YouTube. Amber's work was featured in Mothering's natural toy webinar. If you didn't catch it the first time around, be sure to watch her wooden toy making tutorial.   read more

• Last updated 1/11/13 by Melanie Mayo

For many small nonprofits, affording something as basic as a vehicle to carry out their work can be a near impossibility. Whether it is delivering meals to an elderly person, moving injured animals to a safe shelter, or transporting a sick child to and from a doctor’s appointment—a car is a necessity that many causes cannot live without. Toyota, who has a long history of corporate philanthropy, is recognizing the importance of filling this need with their 100 Cars for Good campaign, launched earlier this year. The 100 Cars for Good campaign is Toyota’s... read more

• Last updated 12/15/11 by Mothering Editorial

From War Chests to Toy Chests By Daphne White Issue 127, November - December 2004 For the past eight years, I have been a professional buyer of children’s gifts: toys, video games, puzzles, puppets, and more. This is not a job I applied for. It is something I created as the founder and executive director of the Lion & Lamb Project, an organization founded in 1995 to stop the marketing of violent entertainment to children. Soon after founding Lion & Lamb, I realized that if parents were to steer their children away from action figures, toy guns, laser tag, violent... read more

• Last updated 7/19/11 by Mothering Editorial

By Rachael Ashak Porter Issue 133, November - December 2005 Have you noticed the term tween in print recently? Perhaps you've heard this age category tossed about on your local morning news program, or seen it emblazoned on a glitter-enhanced banner in the Juniors section of a department store. If not, hang in there's no doubt you'll see it soon. You may even notice a tag that's been created for very young children: pre-tween. What are we getting ourselves into? The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines tween as a child between middle childhood... read more

• Last updated 1/20/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Brandy Ferner Web Exclusive - January 30, 2009 It's amazing how life can turn on a dime. One week I was rolling my eyes at all the coupon clipping my husband's great-grandma does, and the next, I was begging her to keep an eye out for deals on Newman's Own pasta sauce. My journey from riches to rags was really that quick—or at least my realization of it was. As with many mamas, before my active and wonderful two-year-old son was born, I helped bring home the bacon. You may have heard the acronym for it: DINK, dual income, no kids. Looking back, that was the good... read more

• Last updated 6/13/11 by Mothering Editorial

By Sara Kirschenbaum Issue 127, November/December 2004 I grew up on the 18th floor of an apartment building in lower Manhattan. We hardly knew our neighbors, and they certainly never entered our apartment. But when the Full Moon Work Crew families pour through my front and back doors, I love the way their muddy shoes and warm greetings erase the boundaries of privacy and isolation in my single-family home. They know my house. Heck, they’ve worked on some part of every room. And the families in our Full Moon Work Crew work magic. Each Full Moon Work Crew project is like... read more

• Last updated 1/17/13 by Melanie Mayo

I imagine many Mothering families can relate to The Healthy Home author Dave Wentz when he says that having a child made healthy living more of a priority for his family than before.  That was how the book began.  Wentz, with his father biologist Dr. Myron Wentz, “set out to prove that you don’t have to be a scientist–or even a cave-dwelling technophobe–to protect your family from the toxic influences found in modern society” in The Healthy Home. The Wentz’s focus is on health, not necessarily “green living” (though the two certainly overlap significantly),... read more