The last time I purchased a domain and web hosting — for our family’s farm — there was an option to add another URL for a very nominal fee. It took me about a second to decide that the time had finally come to start the blog I’d been writing in my head for six years. I quickly snapped up PoliticalMama.com, and here I am. Perhaps, ‘here we go!’ is more appropriate!
Though I’ve been blogging in one way or another since my oldest child was born, my blogs have all been either personal in nature — written as a way to communicate with my friends — or singularly focused on one issue or another. It’s been my hope to someday work on a blog that combines the things about which I care the most, namely parenting and political and social issues.
It is also my belief that these two things are very much linked for myself and many other wonderful people I know. I cannot set aside my politics while I parent any more than I can extract myself from my motherhood when I vote.
To borrow a line from the witty webpage of the lovely Comic Mom: “What makes a (in this case Political) Mama?”
Five and a half year old Rylie Dale and two year old Ronin Michael have given me the privilege of being called Mama, and I am proud to claim the following political labels for myself: activist, atheist, pro-choice, feminist, anti-adoption, pacifist, unAmerican, liberal, radical, hippie, environmentalist. I am far less proud of this, but I must also claim a Political Science degree which admittedly cost way more in dollars than it cost in both time and effort.
There you have the ingredients for one tireless political mama who is also a writer. To quote the wise Ms. Ani DiFranco, “If you like it, let it be, and if you don’t, please do the same.”
And with that, I’m off to breastfeed the next revolution.
Issa said,
May 6, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
Bookmarked!
In your list of labels, I understand most of them and apply many to myself. I’m curious to hear what “unAmerican” means, though. That’s one that doesn’t immediately have a clear meaning to me.
politicalmama said,
May 7, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
Awesome, thanks!!
I am just using unAmerican to mean that I’m not patriotic nor “proud to be an American” — mostly embarrassed about that, actually. I’ve yet to vote in or follow a presidential election that didn’t leave me crying over the results, and I am pretty fed up with this country and the attitudes of a lot of the people in it.
politicalmama said,
May 7, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
Awesome, thanks!!
I am just using unAmerican to mean that I’m not patriotic nor “proud to be an American” — mostly embarrassed about that, actually. I’ve yet to vote in or follow a presidential election that didn’t leave me crying over the results, and I am pretty fed up with this country and the attitudes of a lot of the people in it.
Issa said,
May 8, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Commie!
I recently “came out” as NOT supporting our troops, so that label probably fits me, as well.