Welcome!

mamiga — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:18:47 +0000

Word to the Mother, or The Latest

Who knew walking around could be such a hoot?
A good meal is only a bad pun away with “Fishing for Compliments (and Dinner).”
“Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Have Mullets.”
Like games? Like people? Voila.
“Don’t Fence Me In” . Seriously, don’t.
We can all thank Emily for the link to a site that will get you outside (and loving it).
Like cold? Like delicious? Then “Fro Yo for Yo(u)” is right up your alley.
“Mom is a Meanie” or “Should Small Children Have Freedom of Speech?”
Cheers to Amy in California for sending us this Times piece. It’s good.

Manifesto

Every day mothers are sold the line that they are at their best when their homes are immaculate, when their purses are trendy, and when their children are color-coordinated. This is, in a word, bogus. At the risk of sounding a bit like a summer camp counselor mid “kumbayah,” we are at our best when we teach our children, when we have fun with our children, when we strengthen our children. They (and most of us for that matter) don’t need better things. Children need to feel loved and valued. Children need better quality time. Children need that unique boost in self-esteem that comes from engaging with the world. For decades mothers have been pushed to do more, to buy more. To drive around more and schedule more. It’s been a doozie of a year for many families; loads of perfectly good money, jobs, and sleep lost without a trace. But hopefully a consolation will be the simple treasures unearthed under stuff and schedule. Learn, serve, play. A mother is the fiercest kind of steward–we battle for our children. Let’s be smarter. You know what’s good, what’s fun, what’s meaningful. You’ve been there, you’ve done that, and it either worked for your family or it didn’t. Mamiga bypasses the fluff to get and give the good stuff: small and large, tried and true ways to help bring balance to your family. Learning lends knowledge; playing lends joy; service lends strength. It’s time for us to help each other. Because every mama needs a friend.

Mechanics

Here’s how it works: if you want to share an idea, experience, or review, just click on the appropriate tab. If you want to fill us in on something great (an outing or activity) that was educational for your family, then by all means submit it in the learn page. If your experience was less brainy and more zany, then please enter the play page. And if you have found a way to help your child, your self, or your whole family reach out (no matter how small), please, please tell us how you did that on the serve page. Just write in the ‘leave a comment’ box on the appropriate page, click ‘submit comment’, and we’ll move your comment into the next posting on that page (it’s a little junky, we know. We’ll fix it eventually). Or just email us text (and photos if you’d like) to yomamiga@gmail.com. Thank you for your input–we hope that Mamiga will be your friend; your idea igniter, your pacesetter (our family goal is to record one activity per week), or your journal of sorts. We’re now building our database (you!) and hoping to soon have a wealth of information for mothers to access… Thanks for chiming in.

Kumbayah. It’s going to be a great day.

Mamiga by Mamiga is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.