Top 10 Ways to Reclaim Mother's Day

What is the sound of mothers Arising?

This Mother’s Day, MAU Mavens across the country will be strapping on stilts, baking pies for elected leaders, hawking fair trade roses and singing in the streets! Reclaiming Mother’s Day events – now in their sixth season – celebrate Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation. This year, MAU invites YOU to celebrate her call to Arise by gathering your family and community together through cakewalks, letters to the editor, Standing Women events, mama’s open-mic nights, or  . . . the sky and your imagination is the limit! When mothers* publicly express our commitment to children, our communities, media and government sit up and take notice. Let’s sing it out in the streets, “We will protect our children with our personal & political strength — wherever they live on earth.”

Thanks to MAU Mavens and partner organizations, MAU is excited to present the very 1st ever “Top 10 Ways to Reclaim Mother’s Day”:

1. Holy Symbolism! Step outside your comfort zone, and get up on stilts. Parade, prance and promenade with a loyal spotter by your side. When we lift our voices AND our bodies together on behalf of the world's children, we become a GIGANTIC force to be reckoned with.


2. Dare to be a Joy Warrior! Deliver pies to your local members of Congress as part of the Department of Peace's 4th Annual Mother’s Day National Action: Peace Wants a Piece of the Pie Campaign.


3. Posies with a purpose: Ask for or send fair trade flowers through Transfair/USA. Fair trade benefits every person along the path, from seed in the ground to blossom in the vase.


4. Review Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers Report (2008 report availably May 6). Learn simple solutions to stop the deaths of nearly 10 million children a year; educate your community with a letter to the editor on this topic.


5. Part your purse strings, because giving matters. Donate to MAU, inspiring and mobilizing mothers* to advocate on behalf of the world’s children. Your donation, in honor of a mother or other, allows MAU to reach out to a million mamas with templates, tools and recipes for actions that prioritize the lives of our children.


6. Press the candidates for Prez to take action for the world’s children. Take a photo of your family at brunch this Mother’s Day and send to the presidential candidates, letting them know you are a Mother Acting Up who wants Global Action for Children.


7. There is an elegant beauty to simplicity. Stand with Standing Women at 1 pm (your local time) on May 11 in support of a better world for our children.


8. Host a 1Sky climate change event, make a banner calling for serious climate action and then upload pictures and drawings of your children and families alongside the banner as part of a national call to action to Congress.


9. Join with CodePink mamas at the Mother’s Day Picnic for Peace in Washington DC’s Dupont Circle, walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, or gather at Merchant’s Gate at Columbus Circle in Manhattan for the 2nd Annual Mother’s Day Peace Stroll.


10. Find a MAU Mother’s Day Reclamation event near you, and revel in it, mama! Gather round, hand out Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation, eat cake, birth strategic plans to act locally and think globally. Together, we can change the world.

Spread this top ten list to your friends and family as a means of igniting more Mother's Day merriment. Most important, after it's said and done, share the way you reclaimed Mother's Day below!

Arise, all women who have hearts!